A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

“What’s happening?”

“They’re prospecting. It seems they prospect dredging land with a drill. Because a dredge can operate at a profit in ground where there are low values per cubic yard, it doesn’t require a great deal of gold to make a good job of salting a claim— And they can use the same gold over and over.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know, just a few dollars, I should judge.”

“How heavy are they salting it?”

“Apparently pretty heavy.”

“Then what’s going to happen?”

“The promoters will milk the company dry and skip out. They’d never dare to put a dredge on it. If they did, there would be such a discrepancy in values that it would show conclusively that the ground had been salted.”

He bit the end off a cigar and smoked for a while in silence. Twice, I caught him looking over the tops of his glasses at Alta.

“Well?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The next move,” I said, “is up to you.”

“How do you figure that?”

“It all depends on what you want to do.”

“I’m going to leave things entirely in your hands. I’m satisfied you can take care of us .”

I said, “You forget that tomorrow at this time I’ll probably be in a cell somewhere charged with murder.”

Alta Ashbury gave a quick little involuntary gasp.

Her father swivelled his eyes around to look at her for a moment, then back to me.

“What do you suggest?” he asked.

“How important is it that you keep Bob out of trouble?”

“Damned important. I’m engaged in some promotional work myself with three associates. To have something come up now that would rock the boat would put me in a most embarrassing position — not financially, but — dammit, it would make people look down their noses at me. There’d be a wagging of heads every time I walked into the club. Whispered conferences would stop abruptly when I came walking into a room. The whole damn petty mechanics of character assassination carried on right under my nose where I’d have to pretend I didn’t know anything about it.”

I said, “There’s only one way you could handle the thing.”

“How’s that?”

I said thoughtfully, “We might kill two birds with one stone.”

“What’s the other bird?”

I said, “Oh, just an incidental development.”

Alta pushed her cup and saucer to one side, and leaned across the table. “Dad, look at me.”

He looked at her.

“You’re worried because you think I’ve fallen in love with Donald, aren’t you?”

He met her eyes squarely. “Yes.”

“I don’t think I have. I’m trying not to. He’s helping me, and he’s a gentleman.”

“I gathered,” Ashbury said acidly, “that you’d taken him into your confidence. You didn’t take me.”

“I know I didn’t, Dad. I should have. I’m going to tell you now.”

“Not now,” he said. “Later. Donald, what’s your idea?”

I said hotly, “I’m not trying to horn in on the Ashbury millions or thousands or hundreds or whatever the hell they are. I’ve tried to give you a square deal, a—”

His hand came over to rest on my arm. The fingers tightened until I could feel the full strength of the man’s grip. “I’m not kicking about you, Donald,” he said. “It’s Alta. Usually, men flock around her, and she makes them jump through hoops. It makes me sore the way she treats them, not sore at her, but sore at my sex for standing all that damn bossing around—” Abruptly, he turned to face Alta, and said, “And you may feel relieved to know that before I left, I told Mrs. Ashbury she could see her lawyer, arrange a settlement, go to Reno, and get a quiet divorce, and take her son with her. Now then, Donald, what’s the idea?”

I said, “The brains back of this whole business is a lawyer by the name of Crumweather. I thought I could head things off and put the screws on him. I can on one end of it. I can’t on the other. There’s been too much stock sold.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know. Quite a smear. There’s going to be an awful squawk go up.”

“How about the Commissioner of Corporations?”

“Crumweather’s found a hole in the Blue Sky Act, or thinks he has.”

“Can’t we put him on the spot?”

“Not because of that. He’s too slick. He’s sitting back in the clear with a ten per cent rake-off. The officials of the company will get the jolt.”

“Well, what can we do?”

“The only thing to do,” I said, “is to find the stockholders and get them to sell their stock.”

He said, “Donald, that’s the first time I’ve known you to make an utterly asinine suggestion.”

Alta rushed to my defence. “Dad, it sounds perfectly feasible to me. Can’t you see it’s the only way?”

“Bunk,” he said, slouching down in his chair and chewing at his cigar. “The people who bought stock in that company bought it as a gamble, not as an investment, They’re looking forward to a hundred-to-one, or five-hundred-to-one, or five-thousand-to-one profit. Try to buy that stock at what they paid for it, and they’d laugh at you. Offer them ten times what they paid for it, and they’d think there’d been a strike, and you had inside information.”

I said, “I don’t think you understand what I’m driving at.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“There’s only one person who could buy it back, and that’s Crumweather.”

“How could he buy it back?”

“He could suddenly discover that all the sales had been illegal transactions, have the salesmen go around and tell the prospects that the idea wasn’t feasible, and that the Commissioner of Corporations had ordered them to return the money received from stock sales.”

“How much would it cost to do that?” he asked dryly. “I’d say about half a million dollars.”

“I think we could do it for five hundred dollars.”

“What was that figure?” he asked.

“Five hundred dollars.”

He said, “Either you’re crazy, or I am.”

“Is it worth five hundred to you?”

“It’d be worth a cool fifty thousand.”

I said, “Alta’s car’s outside. Let’s go for a ride.”

“Can I come?” Alta asked.

“I don’t think so. We’re going to call on a bachelor who’s already retired.”

“I like bachelors.”

“Come on,” I said.

We sat three in the front seat, and I drove over the rough road through the tailings until the headlights, dancing along ahead, showed the outlines of Pete Digger’s old shack.

“You sit here,” I said. “I’ll get out and see if he’s ready to receive visitors.”

I slid out of the car and started toward the house. A cracked voice from the shadows said, “Hoist ’em brother, and hoist ’em high!”

I swung around and shot my hands up in the air. The illumination of the headlights showed my features, and Pete Digger said savagely, “Might have known you was a god-darn stool pigeon— All right, go ahead and try to find it, you cheap, tin-star, two-faced hypocrite. A writer, huh? That car looks like you was a writer. If you ain’t got a warrant, get the hell out of here. If you have, serve it.”

I said, “You’ve got me wrong, Pete. I want some more information, only this time I’m going to pay more money for it.”

The answer was under his breath and reflected on my parentage.

Suddenly the door of the car swung open. Alta got out and walked straight toward the shadows. She said, “Honestly, it’s all right. Donald brought my dad and me down to talk a little business with you.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Alta.”

“Get over there in the light where I can get a look at you.”