Volume 5: Growing Up Chapter 312 Club Retirement Ceremony
At 5:59, when the alarm was about to ring, Tommy opened his eyes, looked around the room with a lingering sleepiness, and then sat up suddenly: "Shit!"
He glanced at the strange woman with messy hair lying next to him. She was still sleeping soundly with her arm on his lower abdomen.
This is the German woman that Tommy met at the party last night after seeing Sophia off. Her background is unclear, but she is not here to make a name for herself in Hollywood. She is a neighbor of an unknown German actress who lives in Beverly Hills, or the parent of his son's classmate. The woman had a few drinks alone and was not in a good mood. When Tommy came over, she complained to him about some problems in life, but Tommy didn't remember anything. He only remembered that this woman in her early forties was not wearing a wedding ring, and then they drank a few drinks and rolled into bed.
"Wake up! Ma'am!" Tommy lifted the blanket off the other person and urged her to get up.
The blanket was lifted, revealing the other person's plump figure. Tommy couldn't help but whistled when he saw this scene, then reached out his hand and squeezed the other person's heavy breasts with great interest: "I didn't even notice this beautiful scene last night."
"What's wrong?" The woman lazily opened her eyes and took a look, then closed them again, slapped Tommy's hand on her chest, and said in English with a German accent: "Go find the first German woman you told me about last night. I have no objection. You are a gentleman who keeps his word. I am satisfied. Don't bother me anymore and let me sleep well."
At this time, the double bedroom door was pushed open from the outside. The woman who wanted to continue sleeping was frightened by the sound of the door opening and grabbed the blanket to block herself. Tommy sighed depressedly and saw the person who came decisively betrayed the female companion beside him: "It was this lady who said to come to this bedroom...not me."
The one who walked in was an old woman in her seventies, with gray hair and a brisk pace. She was wearing old-fashioned and monotonous clothes, holding a set of men's morning jogging equipment in her gloved hands. She looked at the man and woman on the bed expressionlessly: "Jenny's husband's mother, if she knew, she would definitely hate you."
Noticing the other person's unfriendly expression, the woman slapped away Tommy's hands that were still kneading under the blanket and asked in a low voice, "She is...your mother?"
After all, when Tommy was chatting her up last night, he said he was only fifty years old. The woman looked at Tommy's well-maintained face and strong muscles, and did not doubt that Tommy was actually sixty years old, old enough to be her father. Instead, she always believed that he was almost the same age as her.
"It's worse than that. My mother only raised me, but this lady... has breastfed many people in my family." Tommy reluctantly withdrew his hand and greeted the old lady who came in: "Good morning, Dorothy."
The people who came were Dorothy, the head steward of Eagle's Nest who had personally taken care of Tommy Hawke, Tommy's daughter Genesis Hawke, Tommy's grandson Leo Hawke, and had served the Hawke family for forty years.
Dorothy pressed a button, and then the curtains of the French window in the bedroom slowly opened, and the morning sun shone in from outside. She hung her morning running equipment next to her and began to tidy up the room as if no one was around. "Good morning, sir. After the morning run, the regional manager of the Bank of California would like to have breakfast with you."
Tommy got out of bed naked, put on his jogging clothes, and asked, "Why?"
"The ATM machine they installed at home was broken by the children last night at your instigation. They spent seven hours trying various tools and finally disassembled the machine, proving the power of physics. They took out more than 80,000 yuan in cash for today's expenses, and you promised last night to bear the bank's losses." Dorothy waited for Tommy to put on his equipment, prepared a glass of water, and took out a medicine box from her pocket.
Tommy nodded and didn't deny it. "I remember now. I told them that it's more fun to play games than to sit in front of the computer. Whoever can open the ATM will get the cash inside as his prize. But remember to remind them that this kind of game is only limited to my house. I don't want to see a group of young nerds smashing ATM machines on the street in Los Angeles today."
"They are going to visit Caltech today." Dorothy handed Tommy the medicine box and water.
"It's great to be eighteen years old and full of energy." Tommy took the medicine box and swallowed the health-care medicine that was required to be taken before meals with water. Then he walked out of the bedroom and waved to the German woman who was still in a daze on the bed before leaving: "You can continue to sleep, but you have to change rooms... this room... Anyway, change rooms as soon as possible. Goodbye."
Tommy disappeared out the door. The German woman on the bed looked at Dorothy who continued to clean the room. "Hello? Can you let me get dressed before you come in and clean up?"
"Just ignore me, like I'm doing now." Dorothy looked at the other person.
The woman shrugged and made a helpless expression. Then she put down the blanket covering her body and began to put on her clothes: "Does this room belong to you?"
"No, it once belonged to another German woman." Dorothy looked at the woman with playful eyes: "So, it's interesting that you are here."
"Let me correct you. I am of German descent. After I came to the United States to study in college, I applied to become an American citizen." The woman couldn't stand being stared at with such playful eyes by her own sex, so she quickly put on her clothes and walked out of the bedroom: "Goodbye, ma'am."
Dorothy watched the man leave: "Goodbye, Victim No. 2."
…
Tommy was doing his morning run, which he had insisted on for decades, accompanied by his fitness coach and bodyguard. Bodyguard John handed him the phone: "Sir, this is Justice Farrell calling."
"Otilia?" Tommy stopped and picked up the phone and asked.
"On a morning run?"
"It's over. I just went to the community management center to complain and suggested that they introduce a new community regulation, which is to strictly prohibit ugly old women who have failed to manage their body shape from going out for a scary morning run." Tommy held the phone, looked around, and said to Otilia.
Otilia on the other end of the phone said helplessly: "What happened again? You bought half of the Beverly Hills community, no one should bother you anymore."
"It's the residents of the other half of the Beverly community that I haven't bought yet. What's going on is, I was jogging in the morning just now and accidentally stepped on an old woman. But when I stopped and turned around to apologize, I couldn't be sure whether I stepped on her foot or her child! Do you know how horrible this is? It puts me in a bad mood for the whole day!" Tommy said righteously.
"Not everyone can be like you. As long as you have time, you can stick to jogging and swimming every morning to keep in shape."
Tommy looked around with a smug smile on his face, "How else can I entice my beautiful ex-wife to remarry me? A big belly and unaroused club like those losers? What was the result of last night's meeting?"
Otilia smiled on the other end of the phone: "It's the result you expected."
"So, let's talk about our wedding. Since my father, my father-in-law, and mother-in-law are still alive and can attend as witnesses, we can just have a simple small family wedding and return to our family." Tommy smiled and changed the subject after hearing what Otilia said.
Otilia's tone was mocking: "Really? Have you thought it through? I think you should call Tony. He should be willing to discuss with you the rules you need to know and abide by if you want to return to the Hawke family."
"You're becoming more and more like an Italian woman. OK, I'll call him."
Tommy hung up the phone, took another phone from the bodyguard, and dialed a number: "The feedback from Otilia makes me believe that it was your subordinate, Rear Admiral Neil Alito, who was behind this. Please, he already manages nearly 300 large military supermarkets in the world of the US Department of Defense, with annual sales of 5 billion. This is not enough for him, so he must find a way to get involved in my small business?"
"Neil Alito, Director of the Military Supermarket Management Office of the Department of Defense?" Tony on the other end of the phone said in a hoarse and steady voice: "Military Supermarket is the largest unpaid benefit provided by the military to soldiers. Tommy, with a sales volume of 5 billion, there is almost no profit. The goods are purchased and resold to soldiers without adding a markup. I can understand why he wants to intervene in the order business, because the supermarket business is not profitable."
"That's not something you should consider, my dear brother, Admiral Leon." Tommy hooked his finger at the bodyguard, who lit a cigarette for him. Tommy took a puff:
"What you should consider is whether you should negotiate with him to exit my business in a dignified manner, or whether I should arrange a traffic accident. The difference is that if you negotiate with him, he can continue to be the boss of his military camp Walmart, but if I find him, his supermarket business will also belong to me, and then I will bring all kinds of cheap aphrodisiacs to all American soldiers in the supermarket."
"He's an alumnus of SSD. He's very reliable and my junior. He started his military career on my ship. Tommy, it's not that serious. And I think..." Tony reminded after hearing his brother's words.
"Brother, I understand your position. You have to consider your brothers and subordinates. After all, they work hard for you. You have to give them benefits, but the benefits cannot be the fundamental interests of the Hawke family! You can let them dabble in other things such as finance, medical biology, AI intelligence, or even build rockets to shoot into the sky. Those are all very profitable, and I am willing to help." Tommy interrupted Tony:
"It took me forty years to integrate the Hawke family's business into what it is today. It took me forty years to make KeyBank the largest Internet bank, and WinStar's market value exceeded one trillion US dollars, making it the sixth largest defense contractor in the United States and the largest defense information technology service contractor in the United States. It took me forty years to make the Hawke family eligible to participate in the annual feast of the United States' $800 billion defense budget, sharing these bills with Boeing, General Motors, Lockheed and others."
"It took me 40 years to be able to do the same as them. I can engrave a special national defense security logo on a USB flash drive that retails for $5, and then sell it to the Department of Defense for $985, making a profit of 980 yuan, and then give you and other beneficiaries 500 yuan from it, making an easy profit of 480 yuan, so that I can use inflatable dolls as robots to collect information on soldiers' mental illnesses, and sell them to American soldiers at a price higher than that of supporting Hollywood actresses, so that they can use plastic products to relieve stress, and everyone is happy. After all, the ones who pay are the stupid American taxpayers who have no right to complain! You have to understand that selling software, computers, and mobile phones is not as good as selling garbage to the US Department of Defense in a low-key and legal way to make money! I sell an AmigaOS system to ordinary people for $49.9, and it needs to be updated regularly, but if I sell it to the Pentagon, I can erase the decimal point and add three zeros to the price. If there is a problem, I can make another profit by repairing it."
"And you are actually considering letting other people get involved in such a legal, lucrative, and long-term contract-restricted business? I beg you, my dear brother, don't always think in terms of your identity as the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mom is dead. In this shitty country where even killing your mom can easily get a criminal out on bail, there is nothing else worth protecting except your family. You are the head of the Hawke family! What you should care about is that your brother hasn't had enough to eat yet, so get your dog out of here!"
"If your junior dares to reach out to my plate again, I will let Otilia send his brother to jail to give blowjobs to black people! I will also use his brother's scandal to force him to resign, and then the traffic accident. The evidence of his brother's illegal activities will be sent to you, and you can use it however you like."
"I'll talk to Neil and find him some other business." Tony listened to Tommy vent his dissatisfaction and was silent for a while before speaking.
Tommy slowed down his tone: "I won't see him jumping out to cause trouble again, right?"
"He won't be back."
"Very good. By the way, John, do you have any feedback on the matter I asked Ted about before I visited Benjamin yesterday?" Tommy looked at Little Paige and asked.
Paige nodded but said nothing.
Tommy said on the phone, "As far as I know, another active-duty Navy 'Old Sailor' Medal of Honor recipient will have some serious scandals in the next two days. Remember to pay attention. Ted will have the Internet and TV networks publicize it. If he resigns, then you will be the only active-duty Navy admiral in the Pentagon with the 'Old Sailor' Medal. After all, your birthday is coming up soon, and I can't think of any special gimmicks, so I just want to give this to you as a birthday present."
"The naval admiral who was involved in the scandal in your mouth is not only my competitor, but also my schoolmate and my brother," Tony said.
"The road to success will become narrower and narrower. First, there will be no room for enemies, then friends, and finally brothers. When you reach the end, you will be the only one left." Tommy flicked the ash from his cigarette. "That's why I won't walk the same road with you. By the way, Otilia said that if I remarry her, you have to come and talk to me on behalf of her family and teach me some rules of the Hawke family."
"You are not allowed to mess around anymore, Tommy. Otilia is the woman of the Hawke family, you must respect her. I want you to tell me in person that you will not fool around with other women after marriage. I can tolerate Sophia and your Hollywood mistress, and Otilia agrees with me. After all, their existence is a fact, but there can be no other women." Tony said to Tommy seriously on the phone:
"Otilia is now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. No scandals can happen to her. If there is any stain, I will let the Hawke family wipe it out."
"So, you're saying that for the rest of my life, the only thing I have left is to choose to spend every night with one of these three old women in their sixties?" Tommy said.
Tony teased, "Sorry, I forgot, there's also Leo's grandmother, that German woman, you're such a scumbag."
"For the honor of the Hawke family, my clubs are going to be ready for retirement?"
"I hope you respect her. If there is only one woman who can stand by your side and bear the Hawke name, it can only be her. She has sacrificed enough. Don't even think about trying to become a stain, or I will do as my father said and castrate you."
"Why don't you go and threaten Bethea? She plays crazier than I do."
"She is single and does not have a husband who is a Supreme Court justice or the president. If she did, I would also advise her."
"So, what can I do? What can I do is what Dennis said to me a few days ago. The day before the wedding, let me call a few old friends and he will help me throw a bachelor party and hold a ceremony for Tommy Hawke's club retirement?"
