‘Where should I tell him to go?’ asked Mrs. Feeley, bewildered by the sudden turn of events.
‘Civic Center, I think,’ Miss Tinkham said.
An education did not always get you much, but it sure came in handy at a time like this.
‘By God,’ Mrs. Feeley swore fervently, ‘if I get outa this one with my hide, I’m gonna learn to read sure as God made little apples!’
Once inside the tax collector’s office, Mrs. Feeley took command. Two or three clerks tried to get her to state her business. This angered her greatly, and she swept them aside when Miss Tinkham pointed out to her the door that led to the tax collector’s private office.
‘Outamy way, small fry!’ she cried. ‘I come to see the man himself.’ And in she went.
The collector was a nice, mild-mannered fellow. Apparently he was not unused to irate taxpayers and their grievances, for he calmed Mrs. Feeley down, gave her a chair, found out her name, and sent the secretary for the proper tax book.
‘I been payin’ my taxes regular for six years, ever since Mr. Feeley was took!’ she protested. ‘I been givin’ the money to the lawyer just like he told me to before he died!’
The collector asked why she hadn’t paid them herself.
‘See, on account o’ me never havin’ hardly no schoolin’ to speak of, I can’t hardly read; an’ he thought I oughta have the lawyer to look out for the business end o’ things for me!’ she explained.
The tax collector soothed her.
‘Obviously there has been a slip-up somewhere, Mrs. Feeley. We’ll soon straighten it out, if things are as you say. You said you had receipts?’
‘Sure have!’ cried Mrs. Feeley, getting up and bringing them to his desk.
The collector examined them carefully for several minutes. Then he said kindly:
‘Sit down, Mrs. Feeley! I hate to tell you this, but you have been swindled. These receipts are forgeries. You understand what that means, don’t you?’
Mrs. Feeley shook her head in dumb misery.
‘It means that for six years this lawyer has been putting your tax money in his pocket and giving you back a receipt which he stamped “Paid” himself, instead of paying the money to the county and getting a receipt from us! If you had opened your tax bills each time they had come, you would have known something was wrong.’
Mrs. Feeley still couldn’t take it in. It wasn’t possible. She was bound to wake up any minute now out of this evil dream.
‘I can see how you were taken in, all right!’ the collector went on. ‘It’s a pretty low-down piece of business; but I am afraid that unless the property is redeemed before the last of June, it will have to go up for sale. You see, when we receive no answer from the delinquent billings, we assume that the owners have moved away or abandoned the property and are letting it go for the taxes.’
Mrs. Feeley sat shaking her head, still speechless. There was nothing to say. What could be said ever again that would make sense? Her whole world had collapsed around her head.
‘Of course, you’ll have to start proceedings right away to have the lawyer arrested and prosecuted. What did you say his name was?’
Mrs. Feeley gradually came to life:
‘Elmer Strunk! That’s the bastard! Let me get my hands on him! They’ll pick the son-of-a-bitch up off the floor with blottin’ paper when I’m through with him! Here I been thinkin’ my property was as safe as if it was in God’s own pocket for six years!’
‘Now, take it easy, Mrs. Feeley! You’re not the only one that wants to get hold of Strunk! I think I can tell you about a few of his activities! He is wanted for forgery, embezzlement, and some shady oil-stock deals he pulled off. He is mixed up in some immigration chiseling too. The Chinese-American League is offering a reward for information leading to his arrest: it seems he was forging identification papers for Japanese aliens proving them to be Chinese citizens so they could escape being deported. You want to see if you can discover his hiding place, if you can, and have him arrested!’
‘The hell with him!’ shouted Mrs. Feeley, galvanized into action at last. ‘I’ll tend to him later! What I wanna know right now is what I gotta do to get my property back!’
‘I shall do everything I can to help you under the circumstances, Mrs. Feeley. But you understand that it is the state, and not me, that makes the law and the penalty.’ He turned to the secretary and said:
‘Miss Hicks, will you figure out the amount of the accumulated taxes on this case, also the delinquent penalty, and let me have it?’
The secretary got busy and the collector himself looked into some big books for added information on this difficult case. Soon the girl placed a piece of paper in front of the collector.
‘All right, Mrs. Feeley,’ he said. ‘Here’s the bad news! It comes to a total of three hundred and thirty-one dollars—and it must be paid on or before the last day of June. I should like to give you installments on it, but it is not possible. You have to have the money in a lump sum by the thirtieth or the property will have to be sold. That is the only safe way you can do it. If you try to have someone bid for it at the sale, you are likely to lose it as the price will probably go out of sight. Those corner lots are worth a lot as a factory site now, although they were not assessed at much when you bought them years ago. This is the fifteenth of April: you’ve got ten weeks to raise the money. I really wish you the best of luck, because it’s quite a job. Think you can do it?’
Mrs. Feeley rose and took the proffered sheet of paper containing the fateful figures.
‘You’re goddam right I can do it!’ she replied with dignity. ‘Ain’t nobody goin’ to take my property away from me…not as long as my pooper points down!’
B
ACK
at Noah’s Ark, Mrs. Feeley sat in her platform rocker and gazed straight ahead of her at the wall. She was still dazed by the perfidy of man. Anger was mixed with the hurt…anger at herself for having been taken in. She guessed the ignorant would always be prey for the unscrupulous. But three hundred and thirty-one dollars! And ten weeks to raise it! Joke’s over, she thought.
‘Remember that time when Miss Tinkham told your fortune?’ Mrs. Rasmussen’s voice broke through Mrs. Feeley’s brown study. She nodded.
‘Yeup, I do! Break out your crystal ball an’ see if it has any suggestions for gettin’ us outa this fix!’ she said, but her voice lacked its usual ring.
‘Ten weeks ain’t much time to raise that money, but we sure gotta pitch in an’ do it! Why, if it wasn’t for you, Mrs. Feeley, I’d be bogged down at my daughter’s till yet!’ Mrs. Rasmussen was staunchly appreciative of past benefits.
‘Let us not be dismayed: remember the motto of the Three Musketeers: “One for all, and all for one”! I’ll just look up my horoscope a minute and see if there isn’t a practical help or two there!’ Miss Tinkham picked up the chart and thumbed through it until she came to April.
‘Here it is: let’s see, now. Mrs. Feeley, you are Aquarius, aren’t you? That’s where you get those green fingers! Just listen: “Wednesday, April fifteenth; during the morning hours business and financial matters will be under mixed influences.”’
‘And you ain’t just sayin’ that!’ agreed the Lady with the Watering Pot.
‘“Some benefits may be received, but mark time in matters that do not go smoothly. Avoid impulsive actions that may cost you money,”’ the seeress continued. ‘“Keep cool if annoyed. You may benefit in connection with a legal document or other writing or through legal procedure. You may also benefit in connection with a journey.”’
‘Sure! That’s us down to the ground! We sure benefited by that document that come this morn-in’!’ she said bitterly.
‘Well, now,’ said Mrs. Rasmussen quietly. ‘In a way we did! ‘Spose you hadn’t found it out till there wasn’t even the ten weeks left. ‘Spose it had been sold already, an’ the policeman come up the walk with a dispossess in his hand an’ says, “You don’t live here any more!”’
‘Gawd! That’s sure the truth…an’ I never had the wits to see it!’ Mrs. Feeley’s eyes grew round. ‘Miss Tinkham, I’m sure obliged to you for that readin’.’
‘Think nothing of it, Mrs. Feeley. We are bound to work this thing out somehow. After all of us being so happy here sharing your lovely home, we’ll find a way!’ she said warmly.
‘What we gotta do is figger a budget,’ said Mrs. Rasmussen, ‘so we knows just how much we gotta raise each week to go over the top. Then we gotta pare down the house money…maybe we’ll even have to go without beer for a while.’
The three looked at each other pitifully. Of course, if it came to the supreme sacrifice…they supposed they could make it if they had to.
‘No sacrifice is too great,’ announced Miss Tinkham with dignity.
‘You got the head for figgers, Mrs. Rasmussen; you make the budget,’ Mrs. Feeley directed.
Mrs. Rasmussen produced a stump of pencil and wrote on the back of a circular advertising a sale at the Safeway.
‘Lessee! Three hunert an’ thirty-one, ain’t it? How much tax money you got in the bottle?’
Mrs. Feeley got it out from under the bed and counted it: forty-two dollars and fifty cents.
‘Okay: that leaves two hunert an’ eighty-eight dollars an’ fifty cents, right?’ The others nodded, taking her word for it.
‘Now, that comes out twenty-eight dollars an’ eighty-five cents a week we gotta raise for ten weeks. Just to be on the safe side we’ll call it twenty-nine dollars a week. That’s a lotta money!’
‘It sure is!’ sighed Mrs. Feeley. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, I could get it from Danny. The man said this property had went up in value, an’ I just can’t let Danny get cheated outa his inheritance!’
‘But only as a last desperate resort, dear Mrs. Feeley! Remember this is our opportunity to pay back in some small measure the wonderful things you have done for us,’ said Miss Tinkham, patting Mrs. Feeley’s hand.
‘An’ you’re forgettin’ what Miss Logan told us up to class,’ Mrs. Rasmussen reminded. ‘Remember when she told us Danny said his letters was gonna be late on account o’ he was goin’ so far away? Remember, he said he was gonna bring her a kangaroo, one o’ them jumpin’ things that looks like a big mice? She said that was only to let her know he was goin’ a awful long ways where it takes months to reach by mail!’
In her misery Mrs. Feeley had forgotten. Ironical too, she thought, that the only time in her life that she could have used one of Danny’s frequent offers of money he should be out of reach. But then, that was always the way it went. She guessed she never would have brought herself to ask Danny for it, anyhow.
Slim from the corner grocery was knocking at the front door.
‘Mrs. Feeley? Old-Timer’s went off in the truck to haul me a load o’ goods from the warehouse ’cause I’m havin’ a heap o’ trouble gettin’ deliveries. He said tell you don’t wait dinner for him, an’ to give you this. Said he figgered you’d need it.’ And he set a cardboard carton on the floor.
‘The damned old fool!’ said Mrs. Feeley tenderly as she opened the case of beer.
Fortified by a few cold beers and some cheese and crackers, the ladies set about attacking the situation each from her own point of view. Mrs. Feeley went out to the junk yard and took inventory.
‘If I sell it for scrap, eighteen dollars a ton is the top price I can get. Said right on the radio that a feller in Indiana tried to hold out for twenty-three dollars an’ the Gov’mint took it away from him. Served him right, too! Annie Feeley! Shame on you talkin’ out loud to yourself like any loony in Bedlam!’
True enough, if she sold the junk for scrap she would be practically out of business. She would do better selling it piece by piece. She didn’t wish anybody any hard luck, but she wished some of those people with old cars would suddenly have to buy a lot of spare parts. Well, she had more than a dozen storage batteries, and she guessed she’d hold on to them. They’d always be an ace in the hole. That copper coil would bring quite a bit of money too. With any luck at all she should be able to raise a hundred dollars out of the lot. She would have Miss Tinkham print a sign saying: ‘Hurry Up! Get Your Spare Parts Now! Before We Turn Them Over to the Government!’ That ought to do the trick.
Marvelously comforted, she was about to go back to the house when a man drove up and asked to see some sinks. Mrs. Feeley wanted to know what for. He told her he was putting up some houses on speculation to rent to defense workers. He saw a sink in fairly good condition and asked, ‘How much?’
‘Ten dollars,’ replied Mrs. Feeley brazenly.
‘Ten dollars! Why, it’s not worth two dollars! It’s all rusty!’
‘Ain’t nothin’ on that sink a little elbow grease an’ Scourine won’t take off! You can take it or leave it. If you wait till tomorrow, I won’t be able to sell it to you at any price! Priorities!’ she whispered confidentially. Not for nothing had she been listening to talks on Miss Tinkham’s radio.
‘Goddamit, lady! You got me over a barrel an’ you sure as hell know it!’ cried the man, handing Mrs. Feeley a ten-dollar bill and picking up the sink.
‘You hurry back, mister!’ she shouted, waving the saw-buck. That was practically a third of this week’s quota.
She returned to the house in triumph to show off the fruits of her endeavor. They were duly impressed and Miss Tinkham set about printing the sign.
‘When I think of the stuff I’ve practically give away in that yard!’ Mrs. Feeley lamented. ‘But from here out, I’m gonna squeeze ’em for every cent they got! All it takes is a little nerve.’