make sure that you're alwaysflush, but never so filthy that someone will take a notice in you. How does thatstrike you?"
I thought it over. "How do I know that the trust fund won't disappear in a fewyears?"
"You're nobody's fool, huh? Well, how about this -- you find your own advocate:a lawyer, a bondsman, someone you trust, and he can look over all the books andpapers, make sure it's all square-john. How does that strike you?"
Reddekop knew I was a stranger in town, and maybe he was counting on my notbeing able to find anyone qualified to audit the trust, but I had an ace up mysleeve. I wasn't anybody's fool.
"That sounds fair," I said.
#
Back at my Mama's I'd had long hard days, doing chores: chopping wood, stackinghay, weeding the garden, carrying water. I'd go to bed bone-tired, limp as a ragand as exhausted as I thought I could be.
Boy, was I wrong! By the time I found Mr Adelson's rooming house, I could barelystand, my mouth was dry as a salt-flat, and it was hard to keep my eyes open.They've got hills in San Francisco that must've been some kind of joke Godplayed. His landlady, a worn-out grey woman whose sour expression seemeddirected at everything and anything, let me in and pointed me up three ricketyflights of stairs to Mr Adelson's room.
I dragged my luggage up with me, bumping it on the stairs, and rapped on thedoor. Mr Adelson answered in the same shirtsleeves and suspenders I'd seen himin that Christmas, an age ago, when my Mama dragged me to his cottage. "James!"he said.
"Mr Adelson," I said. "Sorry to drop in like this."
He took my bag from me and ushered me into his room, pulling up a chair. "Whaton earth are you doing here?" he said. "Do your parents know where you are? Areyou all right? Have you eaten? Are you hungry?"
"I'm pretty hungry -- I haven't eaten since supper last night on the train," Itried to make it sound jaunty, but I'm afraid it came out prettytired-sounding."
"I'll fix us sandwiches," he said, and started fishing around his sea-chest. Iwatched his shoulders move for a moment, and then my eyes closed.
#
"Well, good morning," Mr Adelson said, as I sat bolt upright, disoriented in astrange bed with a strange blanket. "Coffee?"
He was leaning over a little Sterno stove, heating up a small tin pot. Morningsun streamed in through the grimy window.
"I wrapped your sandwich up from last night. It's there, on the dresser."
I stood up and saw that except for my shoes, I was still dressed. The sandwichwas salt beef and cheese, and the sourdough was stale, and it was the best thingI'd ever eaten. Mr Adelson handed me a tin cup full of strong coffee, and thoughI don't much like coffee, I found myself drinking it as fast as I could.
"Thank you, Mr Adelson," I said.
"Robert," he said, and sat down on the room's only chair. I perched on the bed'send. "Well, you seem to have had quite a day! Let's hear about it."
I told him as much as I could, fudging around some of the details -- my Mamasurely did know where I was, even if she wasn't very happy about it; and ofcourse, I couldn't tell him that I'd met Nussbaum in 1975, so I just moved thelocale to France, and caged around what message he'd asked me to deliver toReddekop. It still made for a pretty exciting telling.
"So you want me to go to this lawyer's office with you? To look over the papers?James, I'm just a sailor, I'm not qualified."
I'd prepared for this argument, on the long slog to the rooming house. "But _I_know something about this; they won't believe it, though, and will slip allkinds of dirty tricks in if they think that the only fellow who'll be looking atit is just a kid."
"Explain to me again why you don't want to wire Mr Johnstone to come and look itover? It sounds like an awful lot of money for him not to be involved."
"He's not my Pa, Robert. I don't even _like_ him, and chances are, he'll hideaway all that money until I'm eighteen or _twenty-one_, and try to send me offto school."
"And what's wrong with that? You have other plans?"
"Sure," I said, too loudly -- I hadn't really worked that part out. I just knewthat the next time I set foot in New Jerusalem, I'd be my own man, a man of theworld, and not dependent on anyone. I'd take Mama and Mr Johnstone out for a bigsupper, and stay in the fanciest room at the Stableman's hotel, and hire TommyBenson to carry my bags to my room. "Besides, I'm not asking you to do this for_free_. I'll pay you a -- an administrative fee. Five percent, _for life_!"
He looked serious. "James, if I do this -- mind I said _if_ -- I won't take ared cent. There are things here that you're not telling me. Now, that's yourbusiness, but I want to make sure that if anyone ever scrutinises the affair,that it's clear that I didn't receive any benefit from it."
I smiled. I knew I had him -- if he'd thought it that far through, he wasn'tgoing to say no. Besides, I hadn't even played my trump card yet: that if hedidn't help me, I'd be out on the streets on my own, and I could tell that hedidn't like that idea.
#
Mr Adelson wore his teacher clothes for the affair and I wore the good breechesand shirt I'd packed. We stopped at a barber's before, Mr Adelson treated me toa haircut from the number-two man while he took a shave and a trim. We boardedthe cablecar to Market like a couple of proper gentlemen, and if I thoughtflying in a jetpack was exciting, it was nothing compared to the terror ofhanging on the running-board of a cablecar as it laboured up and then --quickly! -- down a monster hill.
The lawyer was a foreigner, a Frenchie or a Belgian, and his offices were grubbyand filled with stinking cigar smoke and the din of the trolleys. He asked noembarrassing questions of me. He just sized up Mr Adelson, then put away thepapers on his desk and presented a set from his briefcase, laying out the termsof the trust, and retreated from the office. I read over Mr Adelson's shoulder,the terms scribbled in a hasty hand, but every word of it legal and binding,near as I could tell.
The amounts in question were staggering. Two hundred dollars, every month!Indexed for inflation, for seventy years or the duration of my natural life,whichever was lesser. The records of the trust to be deposited with the WellsFargo, subject to scrutiny on demand. Mr Adelson looked long and hard at me."James, I can't begin to imagine what sort of information you've traded forthis, but son, you're rich as Croesus!"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Do these papers look legal to you?"
"Yes, sir."
"They seem legal to me, too."
A bubble of excitement filled my chest and I had to restrain myself frombouncing on my heels. "I'm going to sign it," I said. "Will you witness it?"
"I've got a better idea. Let's get that lawyer and take this down to the WellsFargo and have the President of the Bank witness it himself."
And that's just what we did.
#
Mr Adelson had spent the previous night on the floor, while I slept in his bed.My first month's payment was tucked carefully in my pocket, and over hisprotests, I pried loose a few bills and took my own room in the rooming house,and then the two of us ate out at a restaurant whose prices had seemedimpossibly out-of-reach the day before. We had oysters and steaks and I had aslab of apple pie for desert with fresh ice cream and peach syrup, and when Iwas done, I felt like new man. Mr Adelson had a bottle of beer with dinner, anda whiskey afterwards, and I insisted on paying.
"Well, then," he said, sipping his whiskey. "You're a very well-set-up youngman. What will you do now?"
All throughout my scheming since my second return from 75, the prospect of whatto do with all the money had niggled away at the back of my mind. All I knew forsure was that I didn't want to grow up in New Jerusalem. I wanted adventure,exotic places and people, danger and excitement. Over dinner, though, a plan hadbeen forming in my head.
"Does the _Slippery Trick_ need a cabin-boy?"
He shook his head and smiled at me. "I was afraid it was something like that.Son, you could pay for a stateroom on a proper liner with all the money youhave. Why would you want to be in charge of chamber-pots on a leaky old tub?"
"Wh
y do you want to sail off on a leaky old tub instead of teaching in Utah, orworking on the trolleys here?"
It took me most of the night to convince him, but there was no doubt in my mindthat I would, and when the ship sailed, that I'd be on it, with a big,leather-bound log, writing stories.
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