Page 25 - Extraterrestrials, Foreign and Domestic

The Hermits

“No mistake.” said Ricky. “It’s ten times as large.”
“I don’t believe it!” The old man’s eyes bulged. “They’ll never
let me get away with that!”
“Ah, but they will, because they don’t know it happened. The
audit trail has been wiped clean. Your balance goes up, a certain
reserve for bad debts goes down by a drop in the bucket. The
internal adjustment transferring funds has been approved by the
chief financial officer and controller of your financial institution, if
anyone ever looks. Everything is in balance.”
Al put one hand over his eyes. “My God. Three thousand
dollars. Just like that. I haven’t had that much money since I
retired.”
Ricky gestured vaguely toward the door. “Now, you must realize
this has to be a closely guarded secret, just between the two of us.
Don’t suddenly change your appearance to the outside world: wear
the same garments, shop in the same markets, and don’t buy an
expensive vehicle. Just make the necessary adjustments to live here
comfortably; otherwise your neighbors will become suspicious.”
“Suspicious! What if they caught a glimpse of you?”
“We shall have to take reasonable precautions. Do you have
visitors in the normal course of events?”
“Hah! You got to be joking, uh, what do you call yourself?”
“Ricky.”

* * * * *

Al took the statement from the plumber’s grubby hand. The
amount due would have wiped him out before Ricky. He grimaced
anyway.
“You had to replace thirty feet of sewer pipe? I thought that
stuff never wore out.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not supposed to, but maybe they put in bad
pipe when the house was built. Just eaten out, like some corrosive
chemical had been flushed through there every day for months.
You don’t use those cheap drain cleaners, do you?”
“Me? Nope. Never had to.”
The plumber threw his tools into his van and drove off. Al
inspected the double line running down his lawn to the street like

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