“Doesn’t the will have to be probated or something first?”
“Not for keepsakes, Kirby.”
Wintermore came back in a few moments with a fat, old-fashioned, gold pocket watch on a worn chain. The watch was running and on time. On the other end of the chain was a charm in the shape of a little gold telescope. Kirby looked at the watch and then he looked through the telescope, turning it toward the windows. The light illuminated a little interior scene done with photographic realism. Kirby gasped and stared and then looked questioningly at Wintermore.
“My dear fellow, your uncle did not care to live with a woman. But that does not mean he found them entirely useless. He was a man, even as you and I.”
“I feel as if I never knew him at all.”
“He was not an easy man to know.”
“He always seemed — impatient with me, as if I was a disappointment.”
Wintermore leaned back in his leather armchair. “He didn’t say much about you, Kirby, but when he did I detected a certain amount of anxiety. It was as if he was terribly anxious that you should be ready. As if some great trial or task would eventually be given you. I wouldn’t say he faulted you for diligence or imagination. But he seemed to be waiting, with decreasing patience, for you to stand on your own two feet.”
“God knows I tried to quit often enough.”
“Quit and go crawl into a hole was the way he put it, I believe. Once he wondered aloud in my presence if you were going to be a ninny all your life. Forgive me, but the quote is exact.”
“I don’t feel hurt. I’ve wondered the same thing.”
“If Omar could have seen you this morning, he would have been heartened.”
“Would he?”
“You were splendid, my boy. Skeptical, indignant, indifferent. I would have expected you to apologize to those five impressive gentlemen for any inconvenience you had caused them, make a full statement of what your duties have been, and gladly accept the position they offered.”
“You know, I’m surprised I didn’t. But people have been pushing me around ever since I got back here.”
“You baffled them, Kirby. You gave them no leverage, no handle, no button to push. So naturally they think you were speaking with the independence of hidden millions.”
“So Uncle would have been heartened. So what? It came a little late, didn’t it?”
“It would seem so.”
Kirby looked again through the telescope, sighed and put the watch in his pocket. “Let them squirm for a while. I’ll take them off the hook when I’m ready. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t know.”
“They won’t just sit there wringing their hands, you know. Expect some sort of counterattack.”
“When it comes, you can tell me what to do. You’re my attorney.”
“It would be interesting to know what Omar had in mind. I do wish we could open that letter he left for you. But I have had a long and ethical career, young man, because I have had the good judgment never to trust myself. We have a Mr. Vitts in this office, a man of truly psychotic dependability. I had him put that letter in his personal safety deposit box. Mr. Vitts delights in sacred trusts. Boiling him in oil would not give anyone access to that letter one day sooner.”
“Before the year is up, I may have a better idea of what’s in it.”
“If you ever have a plausible guess please tell me. Omar was a strange fellow. He made no wrong moves. I’ve often wondered at the secret of his success, and the only answer that seems even halfway reasonable is that, long ago, he devised certain mathematical procedures which enabled him to predict future events. I keep wondering if those formulae are in that letter. It would account for his anxiety about you. The ability to predict would be a terrifying responsibility.”
Kirby frowned and nodded. “It would account for those gambling winnings when I was a kid. And then he lost them back on purpose, so people would leave him alone.”
“I intend to live through this year, too. Just to learn what is in the letter.”
Kirby walked from Wintermore’s office to a neighborhood drugstore for a sandwich and coffee. One little word kept rebounding from the cerebral walls. Ninny. It was a nineteenth-century word, yet he could not find a modern equivalent with the same shade of meaning. Probably it was a corruption of nincompoop. Ninny — that soft, smiling, self-effacing, apologetic fellow, the type who is terribly sorry when you happen to step on his foot, the kind you can borrow money from in the certainty he will never demand you repay it. And if he was a little brown dog, he’d wear his tail tucked slightly under, and wag it nervously, endlessly.
He wondered at his own degree of ninnyism. How severe was it? How incurable was it? Could a man walk through life in a constant readiness to duck? On the other hand, were not the opposite traits rather unpleasant? Arrogance, belligerence, domination. Yet the arrogant man seemed to have considerably less difficulty with one primary aspect of existence.
“Girls,” he said aloud. A fat woman on the adjoining stool turned and gave him a long cold stare. Kirby felt himself flush and felt his mouth begin to stretch into a meek smile of apology. As he began to hunch over, he straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin and said, “Madame, I was talking to myself, not to you. If you feel you’re in the presence of a dangerous nut, I suggest you move to another stool.”
“Whaddaya? Some wise guy?”
“You glared at me, so I responded.”
“All kinda nuts in Miami,” she muttered and hunched herself over her tuna fish.
Kirby felt a small glow of pride. Perhaps not completely a ninny. But one had to start in small ways. One had to emerge, step by step, from ninnyism, acquiring confidence at each small victory.
Actually, at the conference, he hadn’t given a true ninny reaction. Ninnyism would require making a detailed statement of what he had been doing for O.K. Devices, and making them believe it. He had told the truth, but as a gesture of revolt, had made it sound like an evasion. In all honesty he had to admit that it was the intransigence of Miss Wilma Farnham which had backstopped his moments of rebellion. Let the executives sweat.
When a chunky girl came to take his money he braced himself and said, “The coffee is lousy.”
“Huh?”
“The coffee is lousy.”
She gave him a melting smile. “Boy! It sure is.”
He went to the phone booths and called Wilma Farnham at her apartment. She answered on the second ring, her voice cool and precise.
“Kirby Winter. I tried to get you yesterday,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Well, I thought we ought to talk.”
“You did?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me, Mr. Winter. The office has been closed. I’ve turned the books over to the attorneys. I’m seeking other employment. Mr. Krepps left me a generous bequest, but I shan’t receive it for some months they tell me. The relationship is over, I would say. Good-by, Mr. Winter.”
He called her back. “What could you possibly have to say to me, Mr. Winter?”
“Listen, Miss Farnham. Wilma. I heard you burned all the records.”
“That is correct.”
“So it looks as if the tax people might subpoena us—”
“Mr. Winter! I knew you would call me. I knew that the instant Mr. Krepps died you’d forget your word of honor to him. I intend to keep my word, Mr. Winter. I would rot in prison rather than break my word to that great man. But I knew you would immediately start currying favor with everybody by telling them everything you know. Believe me, there is no longer any documentation for anything you have told them or will tell them. And you cannot wheedle me into breaking my word, or frighten me into breaking my word. You are a miserable, sycophantic weakling, Mr. Winter, and I would say your uncle overestimated you all your life. Don’t bother me again, please.”