The Money Tree
Clifford D. Simak
Clifford D. Simak
The Money Tree
I
Chuck Doyle, loaded with his earner a equipment, was walking along the high brick wall which sheltered the town house of J. Howard Metcalfe from vulgar public contact when he saw the twenty-dollar bill blow across the wall.
Now, Doyle was well dried behind the ears — he had cut his eyeteeth on the crudities of the world and while no one could ever charge him with being a sophisticate, neither was he anybody's fool. And yet there was no question, either, about his quick, positive action when there was money to be picked up off the street.
He looked around to see if anyone might be watching — someone, for example, who might be playing a dirty joke on him, or, worse yet, someone who might appear to claim the bill once he had retrieved it.
There was small chance there would be anyone, for this was the snooty part of town, where everyone minded his own business and made sure that any uncouth intruders would mind theirs as well — an effect achieved in most cases by high walls or dense hedges or sturdy ornamental fences. And the street on which Doyle now prepared to stalk a piece of currency was by rights no proper street at all. It was an alley that ran between the brick walls of the Metcalfe residence and the dense hedge of Banker J. S. Gregg — Doyle had parked his car in there because it was against traffic regulations to park on the boulevard upon which the houses fronted.
Seeing no one, Doyle set his camera equipment down and charged upon the bill, which was fluttering feebly in the alley.
He scooped it up with the agility of a cat grabbing off a mouse and now he saw, for the first time, that it was no piddling one-dollar affair, or even a five-spot, but a twenty. It was crinkly and so new that it fairly gleamed, and he held it tenderly in his fingertips and resolved to retire to Benny's Place as soon as possible, and pour himself a libation or two to celebrate his colossal good luck.
There was a little breeze blowing down the alley and the leaves of the few fugitive trees that lined the alley and the leaves of the many trees that grew in the stately lawns beyond the walls and hedges were making a sort of subdued symphonic sound. The sun was shining brightly and there was no hint of rain and the air was clean and fresh and the world was a perfect place.
It was becoming more perfect by the moment.
For over the Metcalfe wall, from which the first bill had fluttered, other bills came dancing merrily in the impish breeze, swirling in the alley.
Doyle saw them and stood for a frozen instant, his eyes bugging out a little and his Adam's apple bobbing in excitement. Then he was among the bills, grabbing right and left and stuffing them in his pockets, gulping with the fear that one of them might somehow escape him, and ridden by the conviction that once he had gathered them he should get out of there as fast as he could manage.
The money, he knew, must belong to someone and there was no one, he was sure, not even on this street, who was so contemptuous of cash as to allow it to blow away without attempting to retrieve it.
So he gathered the bills with the fervor of a Huck Finn going through a blackberry patch and with a last glance around to be sure he had missed none, streaked for his car.
A dozen blocks away, in a less plush locality, he wheeled the car up to the curb opposite a vacant lot and furtively emptied his pockets, smoothing out the bills and stacking them neatly on the seat beside him. There were a lot of them, many more than he had thought there were, and his breath whistled through his teeth.
He picked up the pile of currency preparatory to counting it and something, some little stick-like thing was sticking out of it. He flicked it to knock it away and it stayed where it was. It seemed to be stuck to one of the bills. He seized it to pull it loose. It came and the bill came with it.
It was a stem, like an apple stem, like a cherry stem — a stem attached quite solidly and naturally to one corner of a twenty-dollar bill!
He dropped the pile of bills upon the seat and held up the stem and the bill hung from the stem, as if it were growing from the stem, and it was clear to see that the stem not long before had been fastened to a branch, for the mark of recent separation was plainly visible.
Doyle whistled softly.
A money tree he thought.
But there was no such a thing as a money tree. There'd never been a money tree. There never would be a money tree.
'I'm seeing things,' said Doyle, 'and I ain't had a drink in hours.'
He could shut his eyes and there it was — a mighty tree, huge of boll and standing true and straight and high, with spreading branches fully leafed and every leaf a twenty-dollar bill. The wind would rustle all the leaves and would make money-music and a man could lie in the shade of such a tree and not have a worry in the world, just waiting for the leaves to drop so he could pick them up and put them in his pocket.
He tugged at the stem a bit and it still clung to the bill, so he folded the whole thing up as neatly as he could and stuck it in the watch pocket of his trousers. Then he picked up the rest of the bills and stuffed them in another pocket without counting them.
Twenty minutes later he walked into Benny's Bar. Benny was mopping the mahogany. One lone customer was at the far end of the bar working through a beer. 'Gimmee bottle and a glass,' said Doyle.
'Show me cash,' said Benny.
Doyle gave him one of the twenty-dollar bills. It was so fresh and new and crisp that its crinkling practically thundered in the silence of the place. Benny looked it over with great care.
'Got someone making them for you?' he asked.
'Naw,' said Doyle. 'I pick them off the street.'
Benny handed across a bottle and a glass.
'You through work,' he asked, 'or are you just beginning?'
'I put in my day,' said Doyle. 'I been shooting old J. Howard Metcalfe. Magazine in the east wants pictures of him.'
'You mean the racketeer?'
'He ain't no racketeer. He went legitimate four or five years ago. He's a magnate now.'
'You mean tycoon. What kind of tycoon is he?'
'I don't know. But whatever kind it is, it sure pays off. He's got a fancy-looking shack up on the hill. But he ain't so much to look at. Don't see why this magazine should want a picture of him.'
'Maybe they're running a story about how it pays to go straight.'
Doyle tipped the bottle and sloshed liquor in his glass.
It ain't no skin off me,' he declared philosophically. 'I'd go take pictures of an angleworm if they paid me for it.'
'Who would want pictures of any angleworm?'
'Lots of crazy people in the world,' said Doyle. 'Might want anything. I don't ask no questions. I don't venture no opinions. People want pictures taken, I take them. They pay me for it, that is all right by me.'
Doyle drank appreciatively and refilled the glass.
'Benny,' he asked, 'you ever hear of money growing on a tree?'
'You got it wrong,' said Benny. 'Money grows on bushes.'
'If it grows on bushes, then it could grow on trees. A bush ain't nothing but a little tree.'
'No, no,' protested Benny, somewhat alarmed. 'Money don't really grow on bushes. That is just a saying.'
The telephone rang and Benny went to answer it. 'It's for you,' he said.
'Now how would anyone think of looking for me here?' asked Doyle, astounded.
He picked up the bottle and shambled down the bar to where the phone was waiting.
'All right,' he told the transmitter. 'You're the one who called. Start talking.'
'This is Jake.'
'Don't tell me. You got a job for me. You'll pay me in a day or two. How many jobs do you think I do for you without being paid?'
'You do this job for me, Chuck, and I'll pay you everything I owe you. Not only for this one, but for all the others, too. This is one that I need real bad and I need it fast. You see, this car went off the road and into this lake and the insurance company claims — '
'Where is the car now?'
'It's still in the lake. They'll be pulling it out in a day or two and I need the pictures — '
'You want me, maybe, to go down into the lake and take pictures underwater?'
'That's exactly the situation. I know that it's a tough one. But I'll get the diving equipment and arrange everything. I hate to ask it of you, but you're the only man I know…'
'I will not do it,' Doyle said firmly. 'My health is too delicate. If I get wet I get pneumonia and if I get cold I have a couple teeth that begin to ache and I'm allergic to all kinds of weeds and more than likely this lake is filled with a lot of water lilies and other kinds of plants.'
'I'll pay you double!' Jake yelled in desperation. Til even pay you triple.'
'I know you,' said Doyle. 'You won't pay me nothing.'
He hung up the phone and shuffled back up the bar, dragging the bottle with him.
'Nerve of the guy!' he said, taking two drinks in rapid succession.
'It's a hell of a way,' he said to Benny, 'for a man to make a living.'
'All ways are,' said Benny philosophically.
'Look, Benny, there wasn't nothing wrong with that bill I give you?'
'Should there been?'
'Naw, but that crack you made.'
'I always make them cracks. It goes with the job. The customers expect me to make them kind of cracks.'
He mopped at the bar, a purely reflex action, for the bar was dry and shiny.
'I always look the folding over good,' he said. Tm as hep as any banker. I can spot a phoney fifty feet away. Smart guys want to pass some bad stuff, they figure that a bar is the place to do it. You got to be on your guard against it.'
'Catch much of it?'
Benny shook his head. 'Once in a while. Not often. Fellow in here the other day says there is a lot of it popping up that can't be spotted even by an expert. Says the government is going crazy over it. Says there is bills turning up with duplicate serial numbers. Shouldn't be no two bills with the same serial number. When that happens, one of them is phoney. Fellow says they figure it's the Russians.'
'The Russians?'
'Sure, the Russians flooding the country with phoney money that's so good no one can tell the difference. If they turned loose enough of it, the fellow said, they could ruin the economy.'
'Well, now,' said Doyle in some relief, 'I call that a dirty trick.'
Them Russians,' said Benny, 'is a dirty bunch.'
Doyle drank again, morosely, then handed the bottle back.
'I got to quit,' he announced. 'I told Mabel I would drop around. She don't like me to have a snootful.'
'I don't know why Mabel puts up with you,' Benny told him. 'There she is, working in that beanery where she meets all sorts of guys. Some of them is sober and hard working — '
'They ain't got any soul,' said Doyle, 'There ain't a one of them truck drivers and mechanics that can tell a sunset from a scrambled egg.'
Benny paid him out his change.
'I notice,' he said, 'that you make your soul pay off.'
'Why, sure,' Doyle told him. 'That's only common sense.'
He picked up his change and went out into the street.
Mabel was waiting for him, but that was not unusual. Something always happened and he was always late and she had become resigned to waiting.
She was waiting in a booth and he gave her a kiss and sat down across from her. The place was empty except for a new waitress who was tidying up a table at the other end of the room.
'Something funny happened to me today,' said Doyle.
'I hope,' said Mabel simpering, 'that it was something nice.'
'Now I don't know,' Doyle told her. 'It could be. It could, likewise, get a man in trouble.'
He dug into his watch pocket and took out the bill. He unfolded it and smoothed it out and laid it on the table.
'What you call that?' he asked.
'Why, Chuck, it's a twenty-dollar bill!'
'Look at that thing on the corner of it.'
She did, with some puzzlement.
'Why, it's a stem,' she cried. 'Just like an apple stem. And it's fastened to the bill.'
'It comes off a money tree,' said Doyle.
'There ain't no such thing,' objected Mabel.
'Yes, there is,' Doyle told her, with mounting conviction. 'J. Howard Metcalfe, he's got one growing in his back yard. That's how he gets all his money. I never could get it figured out how all these big moguls that live in them big houses and drive those block-long cars could manage to make all the money it would take to live the way they do. I bet you every one of them fellows has got money trees growing in their yards. And they've kept it a secret all this time, except today Metcalfe forgot to pick his money and a wind came along and blew it off the tree and over the wall and — '
But even if there was such a thing as a money tree,' persisted Mabel, 'they could never keep it secret. Someone would find it out. All of them have servants and the servants would know…'
'I got that all figured out,' said Doyle. 'I been giving this thing a lot of thought and I know just how it works. Them servants in those big mansions aren't just ordinary servants. They're all old retainers. They been in the family for years and they're loyal to the family. And you know why they're loyal? It's because they're getting their cuts off the money trees. I bet you they salt it all away and when it comes time for them to retire they live the life of Riley. There wouldn't nobody blab with a setup like that.
'And if all those big shots haven't got something to hide, why has every one of them big houses got big walls or thick hedges around the back of them?'
'But they have garden parties,' Mabel protested. 'I read about them in the society section all the time — '
'You ever been to one of them garden parties?'
'No, of course I haven't.'
'You bet your boots you haven't. You ain't got no money tree. And they don't invite no one except other people who likewise have money trees. Why do you think all them rich people are so snooty and exclusive?'
'Well, even if they have got money trees, what difference does it make? What are you going to do about it?'
'Mabel, would you maybe be able to find me a sugar sack or something?'
'We have a lot of them out back. I could get you one.'
'And fix up a drawstring in it so once I got it full, I could jerk the string and tighten it up so the money wouldn't all spill out if I had to — '
'Chuck, you wouldn't!'
'There's a tree outside the wall. I can shinny up it. And there's a branch sticking out into the yard. I could tie a rope to that…'
'But they'd catch you!'
'Well, we'll know if you get that sack for me. I'll go out, hunt up some rope.'
'But all the stores are closed by now. You can't buy a rope.'
'Know just where to get some,' said Doyle. 'Fellow down the street has eighteen, twenty feet of it fixed up for a swing out back. Took pictures of a kid swinging there just a day or two ago.'
'You'll have to drive me over to my place. I can't fix the sack in here.'
'Just as soon as I get back with the rope.'
'Chuck?'
'Yeah?'
'It isn't stealing, is it — this money tree?'
'Naw. If Metcalfe has one, he hasn't any right to it. It's fair game for anyone. It's more than fair — it ain't right for a man to have a thing like that all to himself.'
'And you won't be caught for having counterfeit…'
'Now, how could it be counterfeit?' demanded Doyle, just a bit aghast that she should suggest it. 'Nobody's making it. There ain't no plates and there isn't any press. The stuff just grows, hanging on that tree.'
She hunch
ed over the table toward him. 'But, Chuck, it's so impossible! How could a tree grow money?'
T don't pretend to know,' said Doyle. T ain't no scientist and I don't catch the lingo, but some of them botany fellows, they can do some funny things. Like that man named Burbank. They can fix it so plants will do most anything they want. They can change the kind of fruit they bear and they can change their size and their growing habits and I haven't got no doubt at all if someone put his mind to it, he could make a tree grow money.'
Mabel slid out of the booth. Til get the sack,' she said.
II
Doyle shinnied up the tree that grew outside the high brick wall. Reaching the big branch that extended over the wall, invading the air space over the Metcalfe garden, he crouched quietly.
He tilted his head skyward and watched the scared fleeing of light clouds. In another minute or two, a slightly larger cloud, he saw, would close in on the moon and when that happened was the time to drop into the garden.
He crouched and watched the garden and there were several trees but there was nothing he could make out that was peculiar about any one of them. Except it seemed, when he listened closely, that the rustling of the leaves of one of them was crisper than the other rustlings.
He checked the rope looped in his hand and the sack tucked beneath his belt and waited for the heavier cloud to move across the moon.
The house was quiet and still and only showed one faint glimmer of light in an upstairs room. And the night was quiet as well, except for the rustling of the leaves.
The edge of the cloud began to eat into the moon and Doyle moved out on cat feet along the branch. Swiftly he knotted the rope around the branch and let it down.
And having accomplished that, having come this far, he hesitated for an instant, listening hard, straining his eyes for any trace of motion in the darkened rectangle of the garden.
He could detect none.
Quickly, he slid down the rope and stole toward the tree which had seemed to rustle more crisply than the others.
He reached it and thrust up a cautious hand.
The leaves had the size and feel of bills and he plucked at them frantically. He jerked the sack from his belt and thrust the handful of leaves into it and then another handful and another.
The Money Tree Page 1