"Hello," I said, since you never know when the unlikeliest people might want to do business with your bank. "How's the pterodactyl business?"
"Business is good," he siad. "Three of my pterosaurs were won yesterday, so you see people do win sometimes. I regret that you did not. You must try again."
"I'll be back," I said. "Do you come out here every day before opening?"
"Yes. It is the only time I have, since I must be on duty from noon to midnight. It is not an easy business."
In answer to my questions, he told me something of the economics of boardwalk concessions. "Excuse me please," he said. "Permit me to introduce myself. I am Ion Maniu, at your service. I regret that I cannot give you my card."
"I'm Wilson Newbury," I said.
He repeated the name slowly, as if it really meant something to him. "Is there an initial?"
"Woodrow Wilson Newbury, if you want the whole thing," I told him, "but I haven't used the 'Woodrow' in years. When I see you this afternoon, we can exchange cards." I thought Mr. Maniu's formality a little quaint but did not mean to let him outdo me.
In the afternoon, my cousin Linda wanted to take Denise on one of those endless female shopping trips, looking at hundreds of wares in dozens of stores but probably not buying anything. On these safaris, my knees give out after the first hour, like those of an old prizefighter.
I begged off and sneaked back to Maniu's concession. All that got me was another five dollars down the drain.
I was to meet the girls at a souvenir and notion shop, combined with a branch post office, on Atlantic Avenue. While waiting, I looked over a bin full of junk rings, offered for a quarter each. They were little brass things set with pieces of colored glass, for the pleasure of vacationers' children. Some were elaborate, with coiled serpents or skulls and crossbones.
I pawed over this stuff, not meaning to buy—our own children were much too grown-up—but to pass the time and muse on the costs, mark-ups, and profits of merchandising these things. Then I came upon one that did not seem to belong. I tried it on, and it fitted.
Although dull and dirty like the rest, this ring was more massive. It felt heavier than one would expect of a brass ring of that size. That proved nothing; it could be plated or painted lead. It seemed to have once been molded in a complex design, but the ridges and grooves were so worn down as to leave only traces.
The stone was a big green glassy lump, polished but unfaceted, with the original bumps and hollows preserved like those of a stream-worn pebble.
I gave the cashier a quarter, put the ring on my finger, and met the girls. Linda started to tell me about the women's club meeting, at which she had persuaded me, with some cousinly arm-twisting, to speak. Then Denise spotted the ring.
"Willy!" she said. "What have you done now?"
"Just a junk ring out of the bin there, but it appealed to me. For twenty-five cents, what did I have to lose?"
"Let me see," said Denise. "Hein! This does not look to me quite like what you call the junk. Look, we have just come from Mr. Hagopian the jeweller. Let us go back there and ask him what it is."
"Oh, girls," I said, "let's not be silly. You won't find a Hope diamond in a box of stuff like that."
"As you were saying," she persisted, "what have we to lose? Come along; it's only a block."
Hagopian screwed his loupe into his eye and examined the ring. "I won't guarantee anything," he said, "but it looks like real gold, and the stone like an uncut emerald. In that case, it could be worth thousands. It would of course take tests to be sure what this is ... Where did you get it?"
"An unlikely place," I said.
"This is pretty unlikely, too. For four or five hundred years, practically all gems used in jewelry have been faceted. Before that, they just smoothed them off and tried to cut out obvious defects, while keeping as much of the material as they could.
"This kind of mounting goes back much further than that—unless somebody is making a clever imitation of a real ancient ring. If you would leave it a few days for assaying ..."
"I'll think about it," I said, taking the ring back. Hagopian might be perfectly honest (in fact, I think he was), but before I left anything with him I would check up on him.
Next morning was overcast. When we went for our swim, there was Maniu, half buried in the sand, with just his upper body, arms, and head sticking out. He was ladling more sand over his torso. I asked:
"Mr. Maniu, if you want the sun, why bury yourself? The sun can't get through the sand."
"I have a theory, Mr. Newbury," he said. "The vital vibrations will rejuvenate you. Shall I see you at my concession today?" He grinned at me in a peculiar way, which led me to wonder if he slept in a coffin full of earth from Transylvania.
"If it doesn't rain, maybe," I said.
It did rain, so we did not go boardwalking. Denise wrote letters in the sitting room, while I took off my shoes and lay down on one of the beds for a nap.
Then a rhythmic, squeaky sound kept waking me up. After I had jerked awake three times, I hunted down the source. It came from an aluminum-and-plastic rocking chair on the little terrace of our apartment. Chair and terrace were wet from the drizzle. Nobody was sitting in the chair, but it rocked anyway.
Thinking that the wind was moving this light little piece of furniture, I moved the chair to a more sheltered part of the terrace and went back to bed.
The sound awoke me again. I stamped out to the terrace. The chair was rocking again, although there was no wind to speak of. The mate to this chair, in a more exposed place, stood still. I cast a few curses against the overcast heavens, turned both chairs upside down, and returned to the bed.
It seemed to me that I next woke up to find a strange man sitting on the other of the twin beds and looking at me.
He was a man of average size, very swarthy, with a close-cut black mustache. His clothes were up-to-date but what I should call "cheap and flashy": striped pants, loud tie, stickpin, and several rings. (But then, Denise is always after me to buy more colorful clothes. She says a banker doesn't have to dress like an undertaker.) I also noted that the man wore a big, floppy panama hat, which he kept on his head.
What makes me sure that this was a dream is that, instead of leaping up and demanding: "Who in hell are you and what are you doing here?" I just lay there with a weak smile and said: "Hello!"
"Ah, Mr. Newbury!" said the man. He, too, spoke with an accent, although one different from Maniu's. "Peace be with you. I am at your service."
I stammered: "B-but who—who are you?"
"Habib al-Lajashi, at your service, sir."
"Huh? But who—how—what do you mean?"
"It is the ring, sir. That emerald ring from the Second Dynasty of Kish. I am the slave of that ring. When you are turning it round thrice on your finger, I appear to do your bidding."
I blinked. "You mean you—you're some sort of Arabian Nights genie?"
"Jinn, sir. Oh, I see. You were expecting me to appear in medieval garb, with turban and robe. I assure you, sir, we jann are keeping up with the times quite as well as mortals."
You might expect a suspicious, hard-headed fellow like me to scoff and order the man out. I have, however, come upon so many queer things that I did not dismiss Mr. al-Lajashi out of hand. I said:
"What does this service consist of?"
"I can do little favors for you. Like seeing that you are getting the choicest cuts of steak in a restaurant, or that you draw all aces and face cards in contract."
"Nothing like eternal youth for my wife and me?"