United Security never explained this policy, but probably the fact that all of us were over sixty and some were pushing seventy had some bearing on the regulation.
Mr. Olem took over Sol’s Delicatessen only about a week after the Merchant Patrol was formed. It had been common knowledge for some time that Sol Rubin had been trying to unload it. The place did a brisk enough business, but for the past couple of years most of the profit had gone to heist artists and burglars. Poor Sol had been held up nine times and had been burglarized four times, with the result that his insurance had long since been canceled. Shortly before Mr. Olem bought him out, he had privately informed me that one more knock-over could bankrupt him.
Sol probably held the record in that area for being held up the most times, but there were a number of runners-up. Heists and break-ins were so routine in the neighborhood, businessmen had stoically come to accept them as an unavoidable hazard of staying in business. Before the formation of the Merchant Patrol, that is. It was their first real effort to fight back.
I got to know Mr. Olem several weeks before he took over the delicatessen, because when he came to town in answer to the ad Sol Rubin had placed in a national food-retailing magazine, he moved into the same rooming house where I had lived ever since my wife died. A lean, hawk-beaked man of indeterminate age, withered but still sprightly, with closely-cropped snow-white hair that made him look as though he were wearing a fuzzy woolen skullcap, he might have been a well-worn sixty or a well-preserved seventy-five. He deftly avoided letting anyone know which, if either.
He also deftly avoided letting anyone know much of anything else about his personal life, even our inquisitive landlady, Mrs. Martin. He never disclosed if he were a bachelor, a widower, or had a wife somewhere, although he did deign to give Mrs. Martin a negative answer when she once bluntly asked if anyone would be joining him after he took over the delicatessen. He never even disclosed his first name, always formally introducing himself to new acquaintances simply as Mr. Olem. I’m not sure that this was another symptom of his reticence, though. I got the curious impression that perhaps he had no first name.
What his nationality was, I have no idea. His name seemed vaguely Mid-Eastern, and his dark, hawk-nosed visage seemed to confirm it, but he once casually mentioned that he had grown up in Australia and he still had a slight Australian accent.
He also casually dropped a few other items of information about himself to me that he didn’t divulge to the other roomers or to Mrs. Martin. When he first arrived at the rooming house, I had not yet started working for the Merchant Patrol, and we fell into the habit of smoking our pipes together on the front porch each evening. Possibly because I never attempted to pry, he became much less reticent with me than with the others.
At any rate, I learned from his casual remarks that he had been all over the world and had done a bit of everything. He had punched cattle in Australia, had prospected for gold in New Guinea and had been the chef of an exclusive restaurant in Hong Kong, just to mention a few of his more exotic adventures. He also let drop that his most recent venture had been operating a commercial fishing boat on Lake Champlain. It was quite obvious that none of these claims were mere braggadocio, because he spoke with too much authority about each of his many vocations. For instance, his claim of having been a chef was bolstered by an encyclopedic knowledge of the gourmet dishes of many lands.
One item of information about him I got from another source. Apparently he was pretty well-off financially, because Sol Rubin told me he paid $25,000 in cash for the delicatessen. Why, with that kind of money, he chose to go into the delicatessen business in the heart of a ghetto area was never clear to me; but again, perhaps the $25,000 was all he had, and he felt that a small business that wouldn’t require strenuous work would provide security for his old age. Despite his reserve, it was apparent the man took a personal liking to me, and I grew to like him quite well too. This caused me some mental struggle, because I felt I ought to warn him that the delicatessen was a favorite target for heist artists and burglars; but Sol Rubin was a good friend too, and that might have spoiled his chance to make the sale. In the end, I solved the dilemma simply by following my lifelong policy of minding my own business.
Sol Rubin and his wife bought a farm near Fresno with the proceeds from the delicatessen. When they vacated the apartment over the store, Mr. Olem moved in there.
The deal cleared escrow in the second week of August. As soon as he became the legal proprietor, Mr. Olem closed the place for a couple of days in order to do a little reorganizing, and also because he had a van of furniture and personal possessions scheduled to arrive from back east. The delicatessen opened for business under its new management on Monday, August sixteenth.
Like Sol Rubin, Mr. Olem planned to stay open until nine p.m. I dropped by Monday evening shortly after I went on duty at eight.
The sign on the window had been changed from Sol’s Delicatessen to Olem’s Delicatessen, but otherwise I could see no noticeable change in the place. The same tempting array of cooked and smoked meats, cheeses, salads and relishes was on display, and the same spicy odor of dill and garlic filled the air.
Mr. Olem, wearing a spotless white apron, was waiting on a woman named Mary Conners whom I knew because she used to ride my bus to work. Both of them threw me friendly smiles. She said, “Hi, Tony,” and Mr. Olem said, “Good evening, Mr. Martinez.”
I returned both greetings and waited while he finished waiting on his customer. When she left, I asked, “How’d it go today?”
“Business has been quite good,” he said in a satisfied tone. “Surprisingly good, in fact. I think I’ve made a sound investment.”
Now that it could no longer hurt Sol Rubin, I saw no point in continuing to keep the new owner in ignorance of the hazard from criminals in this area. I said, “Just hope the hooligans around here let you keep your profits. Sol Rubin was both held up and burglarized several times, you know.”
Mr. Olem nodded. “Nine holdups and four burglaries, I believe. He could no longer get theft insurance. As a matter of fact, I can’t get it either.”
I was surprised that he knew about the previous owner’s misfortunes, and was even more surprised that he had bought the place anyway. I said, “Well, maybe the Merchant Patrol will discourage some of these punks.”
“It was a factor in my decision to buy out Mr. Rubin,” Mr. Olem said. “It should cut the local crime rate.”
I said, “It already seems to be doing that. At least none of the protected businesses has been stuck up or broken into this past week. I’ll check you again about closing time. Just before nine was when poor Sol usually got hit.”
“Well, thanks, Mr. Martinez. I appreciate your concern, but even if I get held up, the robber can’t get very much. I’m only keeping enough in the cash drawer to make change. Every hour I’ve been transferring the bulk of the receipts to the safe in back.”
I said dubiously, “Sol did that, too. But they always made him come up with the key to the safe.”
“Oh, but I got rid of his old-fashioned safe and bought a new one. Come, I’ll show it to you.”
He led me through a swinging door into the back of the building. The first room we entered was the kitchen. There was a storeroom off one side of it and a small office off the other. Mr. Olem led the way into the office and switched on an overhead light. In one corner was a small but substantial-looking safe.