Part 49 (1/2)

I decided not to beat her. Of course they were not 'good quarters' but they turned out to be good enough. Good enough, that is, to fit coin machines. We had pa.s.sed a penny arcade; such places usually have coin-operated food, dispensers and this one did. The prices were dreadfully high - fifty cents for a skimpy stale sandwich; twenty-five cents for a bare mouthful of chocolate. But it was better than some breakfasts we had had on the road. And we certainly did not steal, as the quarters from my world were real silver.

Then we went to the public library to find out what sort of world we must cope with now.

We found out quickly:

Marga's world.

Chapter 20.

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.

Proverbs 28:1

MARGRETHE WAS as elated as I had been the day before. She bubbled, she smiled, she looked sixteen. I looked around for a private place - back of book stacks or somewhere - where I could kiss her without worrying about a proctor. Then I remembered that this was Margrethe's world where n.o.body cared... and grabbed her where she stood and bussed her properly.

And got scolded by a librarian.

No, not for what I had done, but because we had been somewhat noisy about it. Public kissing did not in itself disturb that library's decorum. Hardly. I noticed, while I was promising to keep quiet and apologizing for the breach, a display rack by that librarian's desk:

New t.i.tles INSTRUCTIONAL p.o.r.nOGRAPHY - Ages 6 to 12

Fifteen minutes later I was waving my thumb again on Highway 77 to Dallas.

Why Dallas? A law firm: O'Hara, Rigsbee, Crumpacker, and Rigsbee.

As soon as we were outside the library, Marga had started talking excitedly about how she could now end our troubles: her bank account in Copenhagen.

I said, 'Wait a minute, darling. Where's your checkbook? Where's your identification?'

What it, came to was that Margrethe could possibly draw on her a.s.sets in Denmark after several days at a highly optimistic best or after several weeks at a more probable estimate... and that even the longer period involved quite a bit of money up front for cablegrams. Telephone across the Atlantic? Marga did not think such a thing existed. (And even if it did, I thought it likely that cablegrams were cheaper and more certain.)

Even after all arrangements had been made, it was possible that actual payment might involve postal delivery from Europe - in a world that had no airmail.

So we headed for Dallas, I having a.s.sured Marga that, at the very worst, Alec Graham's lawyers would advance Alec Graham enough money to get him (us) off the street, and, with luck, we would come at once into major a.s.sets.

(Or they might fail to recognize me as Alec Graham and prove that I was not he - by fingerprints, by signature, by something - and thereby lay the ghost of 'Alec Graham' in Margrethe's sweet but addled mind. But I did not mention this to Margrethe.)

It is two hundred miles from Oklahoma City to Dallas; we arrived there at 2 p.m., having picked up a ride at the intersection of 66 and 77, and kept it clear into the Texas metropolis. We were dropped where 77 crosses 80 at the Trinity River, and we walked to the Smith Building; it took us half an hour.

The receptionist in suite 7000 looked like something out, of the sort of stage show that C. U. D. has spent much time and money to suppress. She was dressed but not very much, and her makeup was what Marga calls 'high style' She was nubile and pretty and, with my newly learned toleration, I simply enjoyed the sinful sight. She smiled and said, 'May I help you?'

'This is a fine day for golf. Which of the partners is still in the office?'

'Only Mr Crumpacker, I'm afraid.'

'He's the one I want to see.'

'And whom shall I say is calling?~

(First hurdle - I missed it. Or did she?) 'Don't you recognize me?'