The Money Tree

His hands were dark in the moonlight with the wash of blood and there were stripes of fire across his ribs, beneath the torn shirt, where the rolla's claws had raked him, and one leg was sodden-wet. He put down a hand to feel the warm moistness of his trouser leg.

He felt a thrill of fear course along his nerves. A man could get infected from a chewing-up like that, especially by an unknown animal.

And if he went to a doctor, the doc would want to know what had happened to him, and he would say a dog, of course. But what if the doc should know right off that it was no dog bite. More than likely the doc would have to make a report on a gunshot wound.

There was, he decided, too much at stake for him to take the chance — he must not let it be known he'd found out about the money tree.

For as long as he was the only one who knew, he might stand to make a good thing of it. Especially since he had the rolla, which in some mysterious manner was connected with the tree — and which, even by itself, without reference to the tree, might be somehow turned into a wad of cash.

He eased the car from the curb and out into the street.

Fifteen minutes later he parked in a noisesome alley back of a block-long row of old apartment houses.

He descended from the car and hauled out the sack.

The rolla was still quiet.

'Funny thing,' Doyle said.

He laid his hand against the sack and the sack was warm and the rolla stirred a bit.

'Still alive,' Doyle told himself with some relief.

He wended his way through a clutter of battered garbage cans, stacks of rotting wood, piles of empty cans; cats slunk into the dark as he approached.

'Crummy place for a girl to live,' said Doyle, speaking to himself. 'No place for a girl like Mabel.'

He found the rickety back-stairs and climbed them, went along the hall until he came to Mabel's door. She opened it at his knock, immediately, as if she had been waiting. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in and slammed the door and leaned her back against it.

'I was worried, Chuck!'

'Nothing to worry about,' said Doyle. 'Little trouble, that's all.'

'Your hands!' she screamed. 'Your shirt!'

Doyle jostled the bag gaily. 'Nothing to it, Mabel. Got what done it right inside this sack.'

He looked around the place. 'You got all the windows shut?' he asked.

She nodded, still a bit wide-eyed.

'Hand me that table lamp,' he said. 'It'll be handy for a club.'

She jerked the plug out of the wall and pulled off the shade, then handed the lamp to him.

He hefted the lamp, then picked up the sack, loosened the draw string.

'I bumped it couple of times,' he said, 'and heaved it in the alley and it may be shook up considerable, but you can't take no chances.'

He upended the sack and dumped the rolla out. With it came a shower of twenty-dollar bills — the three or four handfuls he had managed to pick before the rolla jumped him.

The rolla picked itself off the floor with a show of dignity and stood erect — except that it didn't look as if it were standing erect. Its hind legs were so short and its front legs were so long that it looked as if it were sitting like a dog. The fact that its face, or rather its mouth, since it had no face, was on top of its head, added to the illusion of sitting.

Its stance was pretty much like that of a sitting coyote baying at the moon — or, better yet, an oversized and more than ordinarily grotesque bullfrog baying at the moon.

Mabel let out a full-fledged scream and bolted for the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

'For cripes sake,' moaned Doyle, 'the fat's in the fire for sure. They'll think I'm murdering her.'

Someone thumped on the floor upstairs. A man's voice bellowed: 'Cut it out down there!'

The rolla's gleaming chest lit up:

HUNGRY. WHEN WE EAT?

Doyle gulped. He felt cold sweat starting out on him.

WASSA MATTER? spelled the rolla. GO AHEAD. TALK. I CAN HEAR.

Someone started hammering on the door.

Doyle looked widly around and saw the money on the floor. He started scooping it up and stuffing it in his pocket.

Whoever was at the door kept on hammering.

Doyle finished with the money and opened the door.

A man stood there in his undershirt and pants and he was big and tough. He towered over Doyle by at least a foot. A woman, standing behind him, peered around at Doyle.

'What's going on around here?' the man demended. 'We heard a lady scream.'

'Saw a mouse,' Doyle told him.

The man kept on looking at him.

'Big one,' Doyle elaborated. 'Might have been a rat.'

'And you, mister. What's the matter with you? How'd your shirt get tore?'

T was in a crap game,' said Doyle and went to shut the door.

But the man stiff-armed it and strode into the room.

'If you don't mind, we'll look the situation over.'

With a sinking feeling in his belly, Doyle remembered the rolla.

He spun around.

The rolla was not there.

The bedroom door opened and Mabel came out. She was calm as ice.

'You live here, lady?' asked the man.

'Yes, she does,' the woman said. 'I see her in the hall.'

This guy bothering you?'