One Good Deed(86)

“With no Hank Pittleman around, the problem with your daughter goes away, too.”

Tuttle said eagerly, “You’ve convinced her to come home then?”

“No, not exactly.”

Tuttle frowned. “Then what are you doing here except wasting my time, son?”

Archer gazed at him. “How about if I can get Jackie to meet with you, to talk things out? You make your case to her. If I could make that happen, would it be enough for you to repay the debt and give me my commission?”

The green eyes blazed with curiosity. “Are you serious about her meeting with me?”

“First, is that a deal? Will that satisfy you to honor the debt and pay me my fee?”

Tuttle considered this for a moment and then nodded. “It’s a deal.”

“Okay, then. She’ll meet you at nine o’clock tonight. At her house.”

Tuttle glanced at him in surprise. “Is that a fact? And where is her house?”

“Number 27 Eldorado Street.”

Tuttle wrote this down and then glanced up at Archer. “So you knew all along she was willing to meet with me? You could’ve just said so.”

“I wanted to make sure you would agree to the deal first.”

Tuttle looked at him in a new light. “You might make a pretty fine businessman, Archer.”

“Well, let’s just start my career off with this one, then.”

Archer pulled out the note papers. “Got the documents right here. Good as cash, Pittleman told me. You give me the five thousand dollars plus interest and my two hundred dollars, and you get these papers and the meeting with Jackie.”

Tuttle took his time getting up from his desk as Archer watched him closely, but keeping one eye on the Remington, too, just in case.

Tuttle walked over to the Mosler safe, worked the combination dial this way and that, and then spun the wheel and lifted the lever, and the heavy steel door slowly swung wide. Archer rose for a better look. Inside the maw of the safe were stacks of cash and coins, little cloth bags of something with string ties, what looked to be piles of stock and bond certificates, and a large stash of gold bars. It looked like what might be in a proper bank vault. It was more wealth than Archer supposed he would ever see again collected in a single place.

“Holy Lord,” said Archer, which he followed up with an appreciative whistle.

Tuttle spun around and caught the wonder on the man’s face. “This sort of thing doesn’t come easy, Archer.”

“I never thought it did, Mr. Tuttle.”

He closed the safe and walked back to his desk with a bundle of money as Archer sat back down.

“The interest I calculated at one thousand five hundred dollars. All fair and square. Tell Marjorie I said so.”

“Will do. Now, I got a question. With all that wealth you got in that safe, why did you need to take a loan from Pittleman in the first place?”

Tuttle pointed at the Mosler. “When I took out the loan, Archer, that safe was empty.”

“What changed then?”

He next pointed to the map on the wall with all the pushpins in it. “What changed was they found oil on my land. Two of the largest oil concerns in this country are presently figuring out how best to bring it to the surface. And the contents of that safe reflect the value of their interest, with a great deal more to come, since I, like Hank Pittleman, drive a damn hard bargain.”

“So you were near to broke before then?”

“Six straight years of drought, Archer, would challenge any farmer no matter how competent. Fact is, it nearly did me in. The oil is the only thing that saved me. And it was a damn close call. One month or two the other way, this house and land are gone from me. I had been engaged in discussions with the oil folks before I took out the loan. They just didn’t have their reports back yet, and I needed the funds from Pittleman to keep things going, wages and bills to pay. Timing is everything in this world.”

“Pittleman owned the bank, too. So why not just do a deal with those folks?”

“I would have preferred that, but Pittleman’s bank turned me down for a loan. His doing, I’m sure. You see, he can charge a lot more interest if the loan was from him. And I believed he liked the fact that I had to come to him personally for my financial survival. He was just that sort of man. Loved nothing better than putting the screws to folks.”

“I can see that.”

“When the field reports came in better than anyone possibly thought they would, I struck my deal with the oil company and received initial payments. Being a savvy man, I diversified my holdings immediately: stocks, bonds, gold dust in those little pouches, along with cash and rare coins.”

“And gold bars,” added Archer. “Now you’re rich again. Does your daughter know?”

“The oil companies cannot act with stealth in a place like this. But no one knows that the reports came back favorably. And I would appreciate it if you would not tell anyone, including Jackie.”

“Okay.”

“You see, I would not want my daughter to come back to me solely because she thought I was now rich. I hope you can understand that.”

“If I had a daughter, I guess I’d feel the same way.”

Tuttle slapped his desktop. “God, I sometimes think that that devil of a man hypnotized her or something.”