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The things you do for the admiration of the women you love, even the little ten-year-old women …
“I'm proud of you today, Uncle Vanderbilt,” said ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow. “I'm proud of you.”
Vanderbilt Ludlow had gotten up the week before and said to his wife, “I'm tired, Susanna! I'm tired! I'm going to die a man even if I haven't always lived as a strong one! Enough is enough!”
So, Susanna had gone to stay with her niece for a while in a location Vanderbilt's family of Ludlows didn't know about.
Vanderbilt got to work … the financial statements for the Ludlow Winery did not make sense … yes, Covid-19 was killing the company ... yes, selling $200 bottles of wine had not been the business for a while … but there was something else wrong, and he knew it.
Midas Ludlow's touch, as it happened, had been turning the company not to gold, but to dust – Cousin Midas had been pulling from the till and hiding it in the accounting for 20 years.
Vanderbilt saw red, then black, then white when he realized it, and then calmed down and got to work … he had favors to call in at every important bank, and they provided him with all the information he needed over the course of that week. Then, he called the county sheriff, since Midas lived in one of Lofton County's many high-end unincorporated communities and turned all the information over. There would have been no point to this under Sheriff John Nottingham's administration; the aged sheriff was particular about the types of corruption outside his own type that he bothered with, and he didn't like “uppity folks who never worked a day in their lives, demanding I do stuff.”
But Acting Sheriff Alexander was definitely a new sheriff in town and was doing his best to convince Lofton County that he was for the right – he was delighted to hear from Vanderbilt, and delighted to open the case and go get Midas Ludlow.
“I do need to warn you – I inherit a department with no bedside manner,” he said. “Midas Ludlow is 62. My team isn't going to spare him some rough treatment if he gets belligerent. This is the one county in which I am surprised men like us don't sue more for police brutality – I'm working to change that, but, it is what it is. You might want to encourage your cousin to turn himself in.”
“Sheriff, I can't even talk with him, or you're going to need to have me picked up – I'll kill him!” Vanderbilt said. “I've been CEO of the Ludlow Winery for 20 years, and he's been working against me and the whole family legacy for 21 years! I see why Cousin Archibald got tired and just left! It's better that you rough him up than I do it -- just go get him and keep him safe, because I'm going to kill him if I have to do it!”
Sheriff Alexander knew the history of Lofton County. Ludlows did not bluff when it came to killing, and a bunch of them had gone out West after the Civil War and proven themselves equal to the worst outlaws there were – and, in fairness, made some of the better sheriffs. So, he just went on and put out an APB on Midas Ludlow.
Midas Ludlow was 62 and thought he was 26 – he was always picking up county speeding tickets in , paying them off, and greasing the palms of officials to keep his license and his cars. He didn't speed through Tinyville or Big Loft, knowing that Ironwood Hamilton and H.F. Lee were incorruptible, and of those two, Ironwood Hamilton could do 120 miles and hour and more in his souped-up F-150 truck on a country road and was known to chase folks down and blow them clear off into haystacks. So, nobody sped in and around Tinyville, but Midas Ludlow was running things everywhere else – until he wasn't. Sheriff Alexander already was waiting on him to blow by on a county road at 100 miles an hour in a Rolls Royce again, but evidence on embezzlement in the county was even better.
“Just want you to know we picked up your cousin, and it went about as smooth as sandpaper,” the sheriff said to Vanderbilt some hours later. “I had the feeling he was going to not act right because he's been blowing the department off so long and would just be offended that we enforce the law now – but, he'll be out of the hospital in time for his arraignment.”
“What is it Midas Ludlow said as he had George Floyd's death playing on loop for his family's enjoyment – 'he just shoulda complied,'” Vanderbilt snarled bitterly.
“Yep,” Sheriff Alexander said. “We don't discriminate over here – this department's attitude for 100 years has been our men are going home, and your survival depends on you not getting in the way of that. Midas Ludlow thought he was going to get handsy around his belt area. That didn't come out well for him, but fortunately, his being old and slow meant we had time to subdue him before he showed his pistol and had us save you some trouble.”
“Thank you for calling and letting me know, Sheriff – that will help me at the meetings I gotta have with the board and the workers.”
Vanderbilt Ludlow was one of the better CEOs in Lofton County, even under duress: his workers loved him because he looked out for them even when it meant backing down hateful members of his family. They all knew the Ludlow Winery wasn't going to make it, but they believed he was going to make things as right as he could – and he did. They cheered him for finding out about Midas and putting him in the hands of the law, and they were delighted to know what he and the board had decided.
“We're not going to make it as a winery – but I have spoken with my cousin Robert Edward Ludlow Sr., and he has agreed that we can become part of the Ludlow Bubbly and use all our fields and grapes and everything but the fermentation part to make higher-end soda – call it the Historical Vintage Soda Line, and the only thing we have to change outside is the sign. We can share our bottling capacity, which he needs because they are expanding so fast, and the main thing is, we'll all make enough revenue to keep your jobs secured!”
And so it was that the two branches of the Ludlow family managed to bury their differences and work together once again, to the prosperity of all connected with them.
After this leaked to Uppity Foolery Watch – they were following up on the takedown of Midas Ludlow, and had a person inside the winery to see what Vanderbilt was going to say, Capt. Robert Edward Ludlow Sr. called Vanderbilt.
“It's all good,” Vanderbilt said. “We need about two weeks to rotate our wine stock out and sell off the specific wine things, but it will be just in time for the rest of the grapes so there will be no waste – we can actually start bottling soda next week here.”
“So glad I was able to help – and now, I'm coming to get you for dinner, because you must be exhausted, and you don't need to be alone in case some of our relatives flip out.”
“Oh, Astor's gonna kill me as soon as he gets out of the asylum, and Midas's wife's family is definitely going to be after me,” Vanderbilt said.
“Which is why you are coming down to Tinyville for a little while to rest,” the captain said. “I already have ten in the house – eleven makes no difference for a week or two. As for the rest, I have a plan … ”
Vanderbilt fell asleep in his cousin's car, and woke up to stumble toward where the Ludlows were staying in Tinyville to have his great-niece Glendella run out to meet him.
“I'm proud of you today, Uncle Vanderbilt. I'm proud of you.”
“Well, I had to make you proud sometime, Glendella – I can't have you out here showing me up on courage – I'm supposed to be making it better for you, not the other way, but, I have it together now,” he said, and picked her up, and carried her into her new home where he was the guest of honor that night.