I came to the ad. It would have been impossible to miss, it took up half the page. It must have tost a good deal to insert, but the state banking law (I found out later) required it. It said:
STANDARD SAVINGS BANK
List of Dormant Accounts, Unclaimed for Fifteen Years or More
And then the five columns of names, each with the last known address given next to it.
I let my eye stray over them desultorily. Money waiting for each one. And most of them didn’t know about it. Had forgotten, or were dead, or had vanished forever into the maw of the past. Money waiting, money saying, “Here I am, come and get me.” I started to turn the page, to go on with my idle browsing. My last thought, before the list passed from sight, was a rueful, “Gee, I wish I was one of them.”
And then suddenly, so unexpectedly it almost seemed to come from somewhere outside of me, “Well, why don’t you be?”
My hand turned the page back again.
I was asking myself two things. One: Is it worth trying, would there be enough in it to repay the risk? I did a little figuring. The minimum they were required to advertise for by law was $10 or over, after fifteen years. But even on $10,2 per cent for fifteen years brought it up to thirteen. And until just recently they’d given as high as 4 per cent, some of these banks. So the very least I could expect was $15 or better. Not very much, maybe? Well, what did I have now? A bench in the park and a secondhand newspaper out of a waste-bin. And what was the most I could expect? Ah, there was where the laws of chance got in their play. The ceiling on interest in such banks was $7,500, but that didn’t mean the original deposit couldn’t have been even higher than that. I didn’t bother figuring out what the maximum could be. It wasn’t likely to be the maximum, any more than it was likely to be the minimum. The probabilities were all that it would hit somewhere in-between. That answered the first question. It was worth trying.
The second was: Can I get away with it?
The first thing they’d ask me was what the original amount was. How was I going to answer?
That didn’t stop me. I wasn’t going to. I just didn’t know, that was all. After fifteen years, wasn’t it natural if I’d forgotten? If I didn’t remember having the account itself until I saw my own name in the paper, how could they expect me to recall how much was in it?
That took care of that.
Next, I’d have to verify my identity in some way, prove it. They weren’t just going to hand out the money to me on demand. Just how did they check? I couldn’t inquire ahead, that would be tipping my hand. I had to prepare myself, unaided, the best I could.
Every depositor has to sign his own name on a reference-card. First of all, handwriting. That didn’t worry me so much; handwriting can change in fifteen years. If the discrepancy turned out to be too glaring, I could always plead some disability during the intervening years, rheumatism or joint-trouble that had cost me the use of my hands for a while and forced me to learn to write all over again. I might get away with it. Something else did worry me, though.
Every depositor is asked his age when he opens an account, whether it’s transcribed in his own handwriting or that of the bank-official. How was I to guess the right age that went with any of these names? That was one thing I couldn’t plead forgetfulness of. Even after fifteen years, I was expected to know my own age.
Another requirement: the given name of one parent, preferably the mother. That was another thing you didn’t forget all your life.
An impossibility. Here were two factors in which the laws of chance were manacled, had no opportunity whatever to operate in my favor.
For a minute or two I was on the point of giving the whole thing up. I wouldn’t let myself. The paper kneaded into ridges at the margins with the stubborn determination of my grip on it. I said to myself: “Don’t quit. Don’t be yellow. Some way may come up of getting around those two hitches. Try it anyway. If you don’t try it, you’ll go on sitting on a park bench, reading newspapers out of a bin. If you do try it, you’ve got a 50–50 chance. Which prospect appeals to you most?”
That didn’t need any answer.
So I was going to do it. I had nothing to lose, everything to gain, and here I went.
But now the most important thing of all. Which name? Who was I going to be? In one way, it didn’t make much difference which one I picked. In another, it made all the difference in the world. One of these names might bring me $1,000; the very next one under it might bring only twenty. One might spell immunity, its rightful owner might be dead; the very next one might mean sure-fire exposure. But there was no way of controlling this, it was ruled by sheer unadulterated chance. That being the case, the way to choose was by sheer unadulterated chance as well.
I turned the page over, covering the ad. I took a pin I had in my lapel, and I circled it blindly a couple of times, and then I punched it through, from the back. Then I turned the page back again, with the pin skewering it, and looked to see where its point was projecting.
It had pierced the “e” of Nugent, Stella.
I grimaced, got ready to try it again. That was one thing I couldn’t be, a woman. Then I happened to look closer as I withdrew the pin.
Nugent, Stella, in trust for Lee Nugent, 295 Read Street.
Good enough. She was probably dead, and he must have been a kid at the time. That made it a lot more plausible. I would have had a hard time shaving fifteen years off my own right age without putting myself back into short pants.
I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. That was me, from now on. Sink or swim, win or lose, that was me.
Less than an hour later I was reconnoitering Read Street, on the odd-numbers side. I came to 291 halfway down the block, and right after that there was a triple-width vacant lot. The building had been torn down, and so had the ones on either side of it.
But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I loitered there, scanning the other buildings roundabout. They were all pretty old. If there had ever been a building in that vacant gap, these survivors were easily its contemporaries. But you can’t ask a building questions.
I watched the people that occasionally came or went from the doorways. Kids were no good to me. Neither were the younger grown-ups. I needed someone good and old. Finally I saw what I wanted. She was about 70 and she’d come to one of the ground-floor windows in the building directly opposite the empty space, to water some geraniums.
I sauntered over, trying not to seem too anxious. I didn’t know how to begin, but the old are like children, you don’t have to be quite so wary with them. I tipped my hat. “I’m a real estate man looking over likely sites for development, ma’am.” Her eyesight couldn’t have been too keen, or I’d never have gotten away with that in my shabby condition. “Could you tell me about how long ago the buildings over there were torn down?”
“They weren’t torn down,” she piped. “They had a big fire there once, and then they just cleared away what was left of them afterwards.”
“Oh, I see,” I said politely. “You couldn’t tell me about just how long ago that was?”
“Ages ago. That was before even we moved around here, and we’ve been living here the longest of anybody on the whole block.”
That ended that. I’d been hoping against hope that I could get some sort of an indirect line on —
A younger woman appeared in the background, said, “Grandma, don’t do so much talking!” darted me a suspicious look — suspicious just on general principles — and drew grandma back inside with her.