I took only part of his advice. There was a bar on the ground floor of the same building; I went in and had a couple or nine drinks.
I had plenty of time to recall all this while I was driving out to see Miles. Once we had started making money, he had moved Ricky and himself to a nice little rental in San Fernando Valley to get out of the murderous Mojave heat and had started commuting via the Air Force Slot. Ricky wasn’t there now, I was happy to recall; she was up at Big Bear Lake at Girl Scout camp-I didn’t want to chance Ricky’s being witness to a row between me and her stepdaddy.
I was bumper to bumper in Sepulveda Tunnel when it occurred to me that it would be smart to get the certificate for my Hired Girl stock off my person before going to see Miles. I did not expect any rough stuff (unless I started it), but it just seemed a good idea. . . like a cat who has had his tail caught in the screen door once, I was permanently suspicious.
Leave it in the car? Suppose I was hauled in for assault and battery; it wouldn’t be smart to have it in the car when the car was towed in and impounded.
I could mall it to myself, but I had been getting my mail lately from general delivery at the G.P.O., while shifting from hotel to hotel as often as they found out I was keeping a cat.
I had better mail it to someone I could trust.
But that was a mighty short list.
Then I remembered someone I could trust.
Ricky.
I may seem a glutton for punishment to decide to trust one female just after I had been clipped by another. But the cases are not parallel. I had known Ricky half her life and if there ever was a human being honest as a Jo block, Ricky was she. . . and Pete thought so too. Besides, Ricky didn’t have physical specifications capable of warping a man’s judgment. Her femininity was only in her face; it hadn’t affected her figure yet.
When I managed to escape from the log jam in Sepulveda Tunnel I got off the throughway and found a drugstore; there I bought stamps and a big and a little envelope and some note paper. I wrote to her:
Dear Rikki-tikki-tavi,
I hope to see you soon but until I do, 1 want you to keep this inside envelope for me. It’s a secret, just between you and me.
I stopped and thought. Doggone it, if anything happened to me oh, even a car crash, or anything that can stop breathing, while Ricky had this, eventually it would wind up with Miles and Belle. Unless I rigged things to prevent it. I realized as I thought about it that I had subconsciously reached a decision about the cold-sleep deal; I wasn’t going to take it. Sobering up and the lecture the doc had read me had stiffened my spine; I wasn’t going to run away, I was going to stay and fight-and this stock certificate was my best weapon. It gave me the right to examine the books; it entitled me to poke my nose into any and all affairs of the company. If they tried again simply to keep me out with a hired guard I could go back next time with a lawyer and a deputy sheriff and a court order.
I could drag them into court with it too. Maybe I couldn’t win but I could make a stink and perhaps cause the Mannix people to shy off from buying them out.
Maybe I shouldn’t send it to Ricky at all.
No, if anything happened to me I wanted her to have it. Ricky and Pete were all the “family” I had. I Went on writing:
If by any chance 1 don’t see you for a year, you’ll know something has happened to me. If that happens, take care of Pete, if you can find him-and without telling anybody take the inside envelope to a branch of the Bank of America, give it to the trust officer and tell him to open it.