The Old Die Rich Page 4
it!" I protested.
"You will. Now step into the mesh cage. Use the envelopes in the orderthey're arranged in."
"But what's this all about?"
"I can tell you just one thing, Mr. Weldon--don't try to escape. Itcan't be done. Your other questions will answer themselves if youfollow the instructions on the envelopes."
She had the gun in her hand. I went into the mesh cage, not knowingwhat to expect and yet too afraid of her to refuse. I didn't want towind up dead of starvation, no matter how much money she might havegiven me--but I didn't want to get shot, either.
She closed the mesh gate and pushed the switch as far as it would go.The motors screamed as they picked up speed; the mesh cage vibratedmore swiftly; I could see her through it as if there were nothingbetween us.
And then I couldn't see her at all.
I was outside a bank on a sunny day in spring.
* * * * *
My fear evaporated instantly--I'd escaped somehow!
But then a couple of realizations slapped me from each side. It wasday instead of night. I was out on the street and not in herbrownstone house.
Even the season had changed!
Dazed, I stared at the people passing by. They looked like charactersin a TV movie, the women wearing long dresses and flowerpot hats,their faces made up with petulant rosebud mouths and bright blotchesof rouge; the men in hard straw hats, suits with narrow shoulders,plain black or brown shoes--the same kind of clothes I was wearing.
The rumble of traffic in the street caught me next. Cars with squarebodies, tubular radiators....
For a moment, I let terror soak through me. Then I remembered themesh cage and the motors. May Roberts could have given meelectro-shock, kept me under long enough for the season to change, ortaken me South and left me on a street in daylight.
But this was a street in New York. I recognized it, though some of thebuildings seemed changed, the people dressed more shabbily.
Shrewd stagesetting? Hypnosis?
That was it, of course! She'd hypnotized me....
Except that a subject under hypnosis doesn't know he's beenhypnotized.
Completely confused, I took out the stack of envelopes I'd put in mypocket. I was supposed to have both cash and a bank account, and I wasoutside a bank. She obviously wanted me to go in, so I did. I handedthe top envelope to the teller.
He hauled $150 out of it and looked at me as if that was enough to buyand sell the bank. He asked me if I had an account there. I didn't. Hetook me over to an officer of the bank, a fellow with a Hoover collarand a John Gilbert mustache, who signed me up more cordially than I'dbeen treated in years.
I walked out to the street, gaping at the entry in the bankbook he'dhanded me. My pulse was jumping lumpily, my lungs refusing to workright, my head doing a Hopi rain dance.
The date he'd stamped was May 15, 1931.
* * * * *
I didn't know which I was more afraid of--being stranded, middle-aged,in the worst of the depression, or being yanked back to thatbrownstone house. I had only an instant to realize that I was a kid inhigh school uptown right at that moment. Then the whole scene vanishedas fast as blinking and I was outside another bank somewhere else inthe city.
The date on the envelope was May 29th and it was still 1931. I made a$75 deposit there, then $100 in another place a few days later, and soforth, spending only a few minutes each time and going forwardanywhere from a couple of days to almost a month.
Every now and then, I had a stamped, addressed envelope to mail at acorner box. They were addressed to different stock brokers and when Igot one open before mailing it and took a look inside, it turned outto be an order to buy a few hundred shares of stock in a soft drinkcompany in the name of Dr. Anthony Roberts. I hadn't remembered theprice of the shares being that low. The last time I'd seen thequotation, it was more than five times as much as it was then. I wasmaking dough myself, but I was doing even better for May Roberts.
A few times I had to stay around for an hour or so. There was thenight I found myself in a flashy speakeasy with two envelopes that Iwas to bet the contents of, according to the instructions on theoutside. It was June 21, 1932, and I had to bet on Jack Sharkey totake the heavyweight title away from Max Schmeling.
The place was serious and quiet--no more than three women, a couple ofbartenders, and the rest male customers, including two cops, huddlingup close to the radio. An affable character was taking bets. He gaveme a wise little smile when I put the money down on Sharkey.
"Well, it's a pleasure to do business with a man who wants an Americanto win," he said, "and the hell with the smart dough, eh?"
"Yeah," I said, and tried to smile back, but so much of the smartmoney was going on Schmeling that I wondered if May Roberts hadn'tmade a mistake. I couldn't remember who had won. "You know what J. P.Morgan said--don't sell America short."
"I'll take a buck for my share," said a sour guy who barely managed tostand. "Lousy grass growing in the lousy streets, nobody working, nofuture, nothing!"
"We'll come out of it okay," I told him confidently.
He snorted into his gin. "Not in our lifetime, Mac. It'd take amiracle to put this country on its feet again. I don't believe inmiracles." He put his scowling face up close to mine and breathedblearily and belligerently at me. "Do you?"
"Shut up, Gus," one of the bartenders said. "The fight's starting."
* * * * *
I had some tough moments and a lot of bad Scotch, listening. It wentthe whole 15 rounds, Sharkey won, and I was in almost as bad shape asGus, who'd passed out halfway through the battle. All I can recall isthe affable character handing over a big roll and saying, "Lucky forme more guys don't sell America short," and trying to separate themoney into the right amounts and put them into the right envelopes,while stumbling out the door, when everything changed and I wasoutside a bank again.
I thought, "My God, what a hangover cure!" I was as sober as if Ihadn't had a drink, when I made that deposit.
There were more envelopes to mail and more deposits to make and betsto put down on Singing Wood in 1933 at Belmont Park and Max Baer overPrimo Carnera, and then Cavalcade at Churchill Downs in 1934, andJames Braddock over Baer in 1935, and a big daily double payoff,Wanoah-Arakay at Tropical Park, and so on, skipping through the yearslike a flat stone over water, touching here and there for a fewminutes to an hour at a time. I kept the envelopes for May Roberts andmyself in different pockets and the bankbooks in another. Theenvelopes were beginning to bulge and the deposits and accruedinterest were something to watch grow.
The whole thing, in fact, was so exciting that it was early October of1938--a total of maybe four or five hours subjectively--before Irealized what she had me doing. I wasn't thinking much about the factthat I was time traveling or how she did it; I accepted that, thoughthe sensation in some ways was creepy, like raising the dead. Myfather and mother, for instance, were still alive in 1938. If I couldbreak away from whatever it was that kept pulling me jumpily throughtime, I could go and see them.
The thought attracted me enough to make me shake badly with intent,yet pump dread through me. I wanted so damned badly to see them againand I didn't dare. I couldn't....
_Why_ couldn't I?
Maybe the machine covered only the area around the various banks,speakeasies, bars and horse parlors. If I could get out of the area,whatever it might be, I could avoid coming back to whatever MayRoberts had lined up for me.
Because, naturally, I knew now what I was doing: I was making depositsand winning sure bets just as the "senile psychotics" had done. Theink on their bankbooks and bills was fresh because it _was_ fresh; itwasn't given a chance to oxidize--at the rate I was going, I'd be backto my own time in another few hours or so, with $15,000 or better indeposits, compound interest and cash.
If I'd been around 70, you see, she could have sent me back to thebeginning of the century with the same amount of
money, which wouldhave accumulated to something like $30,000.
Get it now?
I did.
And I felt sick and frightened.
The old people had died of starvation somehow with all that dough incash or banks. I didn't give a hang if the time travel wasresponsible, or something else was. I wasn't going to be found dead inmy hotel and have Lou Pape curse my corpse because I'd been borrowingfrom him when, since 1931, I'd had a little fortune put away. He'dcall me a premature senile psychotic and he'd be right, from his pointof view, not knowing the truth.
* * * * *
Rather than make the deposit in October, 1938, I grabbed a batteredold cab and told the driver to step on it. When I showed him the $10bill that was in it for him, he squashed down the gas pedal. In