Baby, You're a Rich Man

Chapter 18

"Hello?" Mary called, her voice cracking as she did. "Who's there?"

We heard another shuffle, and then an old man hobbled out from the back room and headed towards us. His head was completely bald except for a few wispy gray hairs, his face was wrinkled and spotted, and he hunched over and carried a walking stick.

"Is this your shop?" I asked him slowly.

The old man nodded. "We haven't had a customer here in...years."

"We aren't customers," Patty told him quickly. "We came here looking for something. Maybe you could help us out."

"See, we go to this school..." Ritchie added.

"We were told that this was the hiding place of the fortune of the late Henry Milford," Pete said at last.

The old man sighed. "Well then I'm sorry. You will find no such fortune here."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "We're pretty confident that this is where the fortune is supposed to be."

"I've worked at this shop for a while now," the man said. "I've never come across a fortune or anything of the likes."

Bryan ran a finger through the dust that coated one of the shop's tables. "Are you sure you're even still...in business?" he asked.

"Oh, we're not," the old man replied. "We haven't been for years now. That's why I'm so surprised to see so many young kids here at once."

"Well if there's no fortune," Patty put in awkwardly, "then I guess we'll just get going."

"Why don't you sit down?" the man invited, walking slowly out from behind his counter. "Stay for a while."

Bryan shook his head. "We're leaving."

I, however, wasn't so quick to get out of there. We had travelled all the way to Chicago, after all, and I didn't want it to be for nothing.

"Let's just sit down," I muttered.

"Charlie, I really don't like this place," Mary insisted.

"The man's ancient," I replied. "What's he gonna do to us?"

So we sighed, found a table, pulled up a few extra chairs, and sat down.

"Would you mind fetching me a chair?" the old man asked.

"Fetch one yourself," Bryan retorted.

The man's already distorted face twisted up even more. "I am eighty-four years old!" he barked. "Now fetch me a chair."

Ritchie hastily stood up and dragged another chair to the table at which we were sitting. The old man leaned his walking stick against the table and eased himself slowly into his seat.

"There we go," he crooned as he sat. "Much better."

However, my mind was still whirring as I thought about what he had said a few seconds earlier.

"You're eighty-four," I repeated. "That means you were born in eighteen-ninety."

The man let out a throaty laugh. "Well, I'm glad to know that they've taught you basic mathematics at that academy of yours."

"Henry Milford was born in eighteen-ninety," I continued slowly. "So that means...you're Henry Milford! But he's...dead."

"Do you think there was only one person born that year, silly boy?" the old man countered.