Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [26]
"Alma," he called.
"Yes, Herbert."
"Will you start some coffee for us?"
"I don’t drink coffee at night," I said.
"We have some from dinner," Alma said.
"I can’t sleep if I touch it after supper," I said.
"Fresh—we want some fresh," Herbert said.
The chair springs creaked, and her reluctant footsteps faded into the kitchen.
"Here," said Herbert, putting the envelope in my lap. "I don’t know anything about this business, and I guess I ought to have professional help."
All right, so I’d give the poor guy a professional talk about his three hundred and fifty dollars in government bonds. "They’re the most conservative investment you can make. They haven’t the growth characteristics of many securities, and the return isn’t great, but they’re very safe. By all means hang onto them." I stood up. "And now, if you’ll let me call a cab—"
"You haven’t looked at them."
I sighed, and untwisted the red string holding the envelope shut. Nothing would do but that I admire the things. The bonds and a list of securities slid into my lap. I riffled through the bonds quickly, and then read the list of securities slowly.
"Well?"
I put the list down on the faded bedspread. I composed myself "Mmmmm, uh-huh," I said. "Do you mind telling me where the securities listed here came from?"
"Grandfather left them to me two years ago. The lawyers who handled the estate have them. They sent me that list."
"Do you know what these stocks are worth?"
"They were appraised when I inherited them." He told me the figure, and, to my bewilderment, he looked sheepish, even a little unhappy about it.
"They’ve gone up a little since then."
"How much?"
"On today’s market—maybe they’re worth seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Foster. Sir."
His expression didn’t change. My news moved him about as much as if I’d told him it’d been a chilly winter. He raised his eyebrows as Alma’s footsteps came back into the living room. "Shhhh!"
"She doesn’t know?"
"Lord, no!" He seemed to have surprised himself with his vehemence. "I mean the time isn’t ripe."
"If you’ll let me have this list of securities, I’ll have our New York office give you a complete analysis and recommendations," I whispered. "May I call you Herbert, sir?"
My client, Herbert Foster, hadn’t had a new suit in three years; he had never owned more than one pair of shoes at a time. He worried about payments on his secondhand car, and ate tuna and cheese instead of meat, because meat was too expensive. His wife made her own clothes, and those of Herbert, Jr., and the curtains and slipcovers—all cut from the same bargain bolt. The Fosters were going through hell, trying to choose between new tires or retreads for the car; and television was something they had to go two doors down the street to watch. Determinedly, they kept within the small salary Herbert made as a bookkeeper for a wholesale grocery house.
God knows it’s no disgrace to live that way, which is better than the way I live, but it was pretty disturbing to watch, knowing Herbert had an income, after taxes, of perhaps twenty thousand a year.
I had our securities analysts look over Foster’s holdings, and report on the stocks’ growth possibilities, prospective earnings, the effects of war and peace, inflation and deflation, and so on. The report ran to twenty pages, a record for any of my clients. Usually, the reports are bound in cardboard covers. Herbert’s was done up in red leatherette.
It arrived at my place on a Saturday afternoon, and I called up Herbert to ask if I could bring it out. I had exciting news for him. My by-eye estimate of the values had been off, and his portfolio, as of that day, was worth close to eight hundred and fifty thousand.
"I’ve got the analysis and recommendations," I said, "and things look good, Mr. Foster—very good. You need a little diversification here and there, and maybe more emphasis on growth, but—"
"Just go ahead and do whatever needs to be done,"