A Place so Foreign Part 12

"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 all kinds of dirty tricks in if they think that the only fellow who'll be looking at it is just a kid."

"Explain to me again why you don't want to wire Mr Johnstone to come and look it over? 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 hide away all that money until I'm eighteen or _twenty-one_, and try to send me off to 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 knew that the next time I set foot in New Jerusalem, I'd be my own man, a man of the world, and not dependent on anyone. I'd take Mama and Mr Johnstone out for a big supper, and stay in the fanciest room at the Stableman's hotel, and hire Tommy Benson 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 a red cent. There are things here that you're not telling me. Now, that's your business, 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't going to say no. Besides, I hadn't even played my trump card yet: that if he didn't help me, I'd be out on the streets on my own, and I could tell that he didn't like that idea.

Mr Adelson wore his teacher clothes for the affair and I wore the good breeches and shirt I'd packed. We stopped at a barber's before, Mr Adelson treated me to a haircut from the number-two man while he took a shave and a trim. We boarded the cablecar to Market like a couple of proper gentlemen, and if I thought flying in a jetpack was exciting, it was nothing compared to the terror of hanging 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 grubby and filled with stinking cigar smoke and the din of the trolleys. He asked no embarra.s.sing questions of me. He just sized up Mr Adelson, then put away the papers on his desk and presented a set from his briefcase, laying out the terms of 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 Wells Fargo, 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 for this, 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 from bouncing 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 Wells Fargo 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 his protests, 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 seemed impossibly out-of-reach the day before. We had oysters and steaks and I had a slab of apple pie for desert with fresh ice cream and peach syrup, and when I was done, I felt like new man. Mr Adelson had a bottle of beer with dinner, and a whiskey afterwards, and I insisted on paying.

"Well, then," he said, sipping his whiskey. "You're a very well-set-up young man. What will you do now?"

All throughout my scheming since my second return from 75, the prospect of what to do with all the money had niggled away at the back of my mind. All I knew for sure 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 had been 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 you have. Why would you want to be in charge of chamber-pots on a leaky old tub?"

"Why do you want to sail off on a leaky old tub instead of teaching in Utah, or working on the trolleys here?"

It took me most of the night to convince him, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would, and when the ship sailed, that I'd be on it, with a big, leather-bound log, writing stories.