George Cobble was 75, retired, and living in a cheap two-bedroom house on the outskirts of a small city on the Virginia coast. The house itself was small, old, faced with semi-deteriorated asphalt siding, and unremarkable, in a subdivision of similarly old and unremarkable homes. No one would have guessed the old man was a millionaire many times over.
Cobble was now retired. He had worked all his life in Chicago, one of several accountants in the home office of a detective agency known everywhere and operating in all the big American cities.
The company required its agents to report back to headquarters after completing each assignment out of town. But detectives had no reason to mingle with the accounting staff, least of all with quiet George Cobble.
The one detective that did know George was Robert Brewer, and that was only because of a coincidence: the two had wound up eating at the same table for two in the agency’s packed lunchroom every single day for two weeks, over 30 years ago. They got on very well.
Brewer, young enough to be Cobble’s son, also remained a lifelong bachelor.
Over the years, whenever Brewer was in town, he and Cobble had made it a point to have lunch together, either in the cafeteria or they went to a restaurant if they had time. It was just a friendly thing.
Once Cobble retired to Virginia, he and Brewer never met again, nor phoned one another. Neither man had been one to write letters.
The old man had never spent a penny more than any moderate comfort required. Everything else he saved. And that is how he became incredibly rich.
Cobble kept his money in various banks, the safest way to invest that he knew. His money grew at a snail’s pace, sometimes losing ground to inflation, sometimes gaining it—but over the years it grew and seemed to take on a life of its own.
To Cobble, his money was no more than a collection of digits, giving it no more care than if it had been a very minor collection of stamps, beads of smooth beach glass, or unusual, but not necessarily valuable, coins. He had as much attachment to it as he had with his cheap kitchen table, his dusty old divan, even toilet paper.
He didn’t know rich people, never wanted to, but he was aware of their lifestyles. The old man regarded with distaste the flaunting of money, wealthy families living ridiculous lives, with their pretentious homes, lawns tended like public parks, ultra-expensive cars, and domestic servants to see to their every need.
Most irritating to him was the thought that many of these people were born into ancestral fortunes. They knew nothing about making, increasing, or saving money. All they knew was how to spend.
Even though his years were getting on, Cobble was fit and in excellent health. Still, he knew that he should make a will. With his typically wry humor he wanted to be ready because (his idea,) Death might not call ahead once it had taken a liking to you.
But he had never gone through the process of wills. He had no relatives and no idea what local institutions might need his money once he was gone.
Cobble had always assumed that his assets would eventually become state property. This thought amused him, in a black sort of way: politicians and bureaucrats, all with their agendas, and the magnificent squabbles over where the money should go.
How he would enjoy watching that, if only he could be there.
Every day, the old man walked the same three-mile circuit around town. He was a dapper old gent, always in a cleaned, pressed suit, white shirt, and tie. He had a pleasant greeting for anyone he passed.
Over the last several months, he had found a new friend. He would smile and sit down next to a young man on a bench along the sidewalk at the city park. The young man, Jimmy Banks, was perhaps in his mid-20s, a street person in ragged clothes, his dirty hands propped on the crook of an old cane.
The boy grew up in Boston. Cobble liked the accent.
The pair got along famously. They discussed everything from professional sports, political foolishness, and even how well the fish were biting for the charter boats out on the sea.
Having taken up with Jimmy Banks, the old man began to feel a kind of emptiness that he had never felt before. Jimmy was about the age of a grandchild he had never had. The thought made him wish that he had been married and had a family of his own.
One day, Cobble asked Jimmy about his past.
Jimmy said that he had worked at a few office jobs, usually in the mailroom, delivering documents to other offices around town. But he hadn’t worked in quite a while.
“It’s really no one’s fault,” he said. “Just the luck of the draw.”
His mother had crashed their car when he was little. It had damaged nerves in his upper back and neck. The Doctors thought he would improve as he grew older, but that didn’t happen. So they wanted to start him on treatments.
He was old enough then to know that his mom couldn’t afford it. But she was determined that he get the care. His dad? He was somewhere else. Jimmy never knew him. What he did know was that his mom was ready to spend everything she had to care for him. He figured she had helped him enough. He left home to get out of her hair.
“The whole thing’s not a big deal,” he said. “I know there are lots of people out there a lot worse off than I am. Can’t complain, y’know?”
Cobble nodded.
“Anyway,” Jimmy said, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
His only problem he could live with. Once in a very long while he could have a seizure. The cane helped him get safely to the ground, so he didn’t fall and hurt something else. The boy rolled his eyes, as if to say, “I know it sounds bad, but it’s no big deal.”
“It does mess with keeping a job,” he said.
After learning all that, every time Cobble rose to go on his way, he gave Jimmy a ten or a twenty-dollar bill. It crossed the old man’s mind that he could give the boy much more. Whether they were related or not, he began wondering whether the boy might make a suitable heir.
It went against Cobble’s principle — people getting easy money — but when he thought of leaving all he had to the youngster, particularly a person without much hope, and who took his problems in stride, a smile crept across the old man’s face.
Occasionally, Jimmy asked Cobble if he had any ideas to make money on your own. During their next meetings, they kicked this subject back and forth. Cobble, whose background had not depended on self-industry itself, other than getting a job and keeping it, really hadn’t much to tell the boy. However, it encouraged the old man that the boy at least wanted to try something.
Jimmy said, “One day, I think I might open an office on my own…”
“What would you do in that office?” Cobble asked.
“Oh, I have some ideas.” But Jimmy said no more than that.
Cobble nodded. He didn’t want to barge into the young man’s thoughts without being invited.
Before Cobble left that day, he asked, “How much money would you need? For this office?”
Looking up at the old man, Jimmy said, “Too much. I’ve got some details to work out first.”
Perhaps he caught a brief look on the old man’s face. He quickly added, “I’m not asking you for anything. Goodness knows you’ve given me enough already.”
Cobble reached into his pocket and offered Jimmy a fifty-dollar bill.
“Thank you, Mr. Cobble,” said Jimmy.
“Look after yourself, son,” the old man replied.
He felt sad about the boy.
That afternoon, Cobble made an appointment with a lawyer to draw up a will. He named Jimmy Banks as the sole beneficiary. When it was done, the old man’s heart was warm, and he tingled with happiness. At last, all his money had become meaningful, and he was glad.
The lawyer told him the document would be ready to sign in two weeks.
“Too much” money indeed, Cobble thought. I’d love to see the look on his young face when he knows what I’ve done.
That would never happen, of course, because the old man would be dead. That was okay. Cobble had begun to think of handing the boy a healthy sum just so that he, Cobble, could enjoy it while he was alive.
From that point on, Cobble bubbled inside with happiness, like Scrooge at the end of the Christmas Carol. When he spoke to the boy, it took all the old man’s resolve not to crack into a grin from ear to ear.
About two weeks later, in fact the very day after he had signed his will, he left Jimmy all in smiles, holding a one-hundred-dollar bill that the old man had just given him. Cobble got to the end of the block and had begun to cross the next street when he saw a man on the far side waving him over. It was Robert Brewer, his detective friend from long ago.
“George Cobble. I don’t believe my eyes,” Brewer said, holding his hand out to shake. An imposing telephoto camera hung under his arm, and a briefcase sat on the sidewalk beside him.
“Robert!” Cobble said, shaking hands. “What on earth brings you here? How long has it been? Keeping well?”
“These days I cover St. Louis,” the other man said. “I’m here for one of our clients.”
Brewer leaned in close. “I couldn’t help noticing. Do you know that young man you just left?” Brewer nodded secretively towards Jimmy Banks, a block away, now sitting alone on the bench, staring blankly across the road in front of the park.
“A homeless youngster,” said Cobble. “Nice kid. He’s had a tough life. A lot of problems.”
“And money will fix them, right?” Brewer said.
“Well, yes,” Cobble said. “I know he’s looking for money.”
Brewer reached into his briefcase and drew out a file. From this, he produced a large photograph. It showed “Jimmy Banks,” clean, meticulously barbered, and dressed in a three-piece suit. He was sneering, squinting through the smoke of a cigarette that hung from his lips.
Brewer said, “Real name’s Stephan Kirkenblad. From one of the richest families in St. Louis. Their history supposedly goes back to the Mayflower.”
“You’re kidding,” said Cobble.
“No, this is legit. Ste-phan Kirkenblad.” Brewer used a pompous version of the name. “Managed to piss off the granddad. No one in St. Louis goes against that old prick, including family.”
Cobble, who knew his old friend was a good detective, realized that he had better pay attention. “What did they do to him?” he asked.
“Ste-phan was kicked out on his ear. No payoff. No goodbye. Just gone.”
Then he was in fact, a street person, thought Cobble. But if he started from a rich background…
“Did the family send you here?” he asked.
“His mom,” Brewer said. “She wants to keep tabs on her boy. I let her know what he’s up to.”
“What’s that?”
“Cons money. Usually from older folks.”
Cobble frowned.
“Aw, man. He didn’t soak you…”
Cobble felt rather sheepish. He shrugged and shook his head. He didn’t want to divulge any more.
“George,” said Brewer. “This is the fourth time I’ve tracked him down. He’s always a street person.
“He travels around. Stops in different towns. He gets to know someone, makes a sting, then he’s gone. I reach out to the victims then Ste-phan’s mom sends them a cashier’s check. That’s for a refund. Plus a lot more. We’re talking 1,000s here. Many more 1,000s repaid. All to keep charges from being filed. No police.
“You’re in luck, my friend. When I tell her about you. Boy, you are going to be one happy camper.”
Cobble told him that nothing had actually happened. Yet.
As the old man walked home, his recent bubble of happiness had popped. He knew Robert Brewer told the truth. Everything fit too neatly into place.
He did something that he rarely did – stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of the most expensive scotch they had on the shelves.
That night, the old man sat at his kitchen table, sipping scotch, the new will lying flat in front of him, the only copy in existence.
He began to chuckle.
“Beneficiary,” he said out loud. “What a ridiculous word.”
Slowly, he ripped the papers before him right down the middle. He laughed out loud and ripped the pieces smaller and smaller, until he had a little pile of them, each about the size of a postage stamp.
He pulled a long swig and merrily thought, Well, I tried.
Inside, he laughed hilariously, enough for a good comedian’s audience.
Go ahead, Pols. Tell each other where to spend it. Let the squabbles begin.
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