"Mr. Farley, what a lovely surprise! Have you reconsidered?"
Chuck allowed himself a small smile. "Not precisely." He reached into the satchel holding his Roman garments and extracted from a side pocket the bait. "I wanted to discuss this with you." He rubbed the back of his neck as though self-conscious. "I was told you were the expert on such things." With well-practiced deference, he handed over a faded newspaper clipping.
Eyes glancing curiously from his face to the bit of paper, Goldie Morran scanned what he'd handed her. Avarice gleamed for a lovely instant. Hook, line, and sinker.
"Well, that is most interesting," Goldie Morran said with a slight clearing of her throat. "This is legitimate?"
"I assure you, it is. I'm something of an amateur historian and I was tracing some of my family's history. I came across this in my uptime researches into the Gold Rush in Colorado. Imagine my surprise." It came out droll enough to cause Goldie to laugh. He smiled and gestured to the newspaper clipping. "There I am, preserved for posterity, standing over the gold mine I discovered, while some primitive cameraman takes my photograph for the folks back home." He chuckled. "So, you see, I have this opportunity-destiny?-and all I require to fulfill it is a grubstake to purchase the blasted bit of ground."
"Ahh ..." Goldie smiled and beckoned him to a comfortable seat on the customer side of her counter. "You'll be wanting to exchange uptime currency for American currency of the proper type for the Wild West Gate, then?"
"Exactly. I'll need a lot of money downtime to buy the camping gear, mining equipment, horses, and so on, to develop the mine quickly and make me seem legitimate. And you understand I don't want to exchange such a large sum of money officially-the ATF is suspicious, you know."
Goldie chuckled unexpectedly. "No wonder you weren't interested in any of my suggested investments. You had your own nicely arranged. Very clever, Mr. Farley." She wagged a talon at him. "How much did you have in mind to exchange?"
"A hundred thousand."
Goldie Morran's eyes widened.
"I did bring the cash," he added with a small smile.
"All right. A hundred thousand. I'll see what I have. There will, of course, be a small transaction fee included in the exchange rate."
"Oh yes, I quite understand," Farley reassured her.
She walked down the counter and opened up a locked drawer. She returned with a large wad- of oversized bank notes and a handful of gold and silver coins.
He then dutifully unbuckled the money belt under his uptime clothing and counted out a hundred thousand-dollar bills. Goldie's eyes gleamed. She swiftly counted the money he handed to her, and pushed the unwieldy pile of downtimer money to him.
The exchange completed, Goldie smiled. "You realize sir, that you'll also need a good quantity of gold nuggets to take into the assayer's office as proof of your strike, in order to stake a proper claim."
Chuck looked taken aback. "I hadn't realized that. But I was told I'd need at least this much money to buy the new gear in 1885 because of the high prices during the gold rush. And this is all I have."
Goldie nodded, reminding Chuck of a cathedral downspout he'd once seen, come to full and hideous life. "Well, maybe I can help you. As it happens, I have a good bit of my own assets in the form of gold.
I'll give you the gold you need to substantiate your claim if you cut me in for a percentage of your strike. Say about fifty percent?"
Farley looked eager, then less so when she named the percentage. "Well, that seems a bit steep. How about twenty percent? After all, I did find it."
"Yes, but without my gold, you'll have to spend a lot of back-breaking, sweaty work just to rush into town to make your claim before the gate closes. Then you'll have to get back to your mine, wasting time that could be devoted to getting more gold out of the ground."
"True enough. Hmm, how about fifty percent and you agree to exchange my share of the gold dust I bring back without charging your usual fee?"
"Done, sir."
She dove into back room and after a short time came back with a rolling cart on which were piled small sacks with odd lumps sticking through the cloth. She pulled out a set of scales and calibrated weights from a shelf underneath the counter, and sat down.
"Now, mostly what I have is dust, but there are a few nuggets," she said with a smile. "This should be enough to convince the assayer about your strike." She set up the scales carefully, filling one side with brass weights designated in troy ounces. She opened a sack and tipped gold into the other pan until the scale read level. "At the current rates of exchange, that's a hundred dollars."
She was lying-it was actually more like thirty-five. Chuck said diffidently, "Er, isn't that a bit light?"
"Oops, sorry, these are the ones I reserve for the zipper jockeys. Let me get the real ones." She opened a drawer behind her, and pulled out another set of counterweights, and continued measuring out hundredweight's until she'd finished with the pile. It was a big pile.
"You probably think it's odd that I happen to keep this much gold around. But I went through the big crash after the Accident, and I don't trust banks, not anymore."
Chuck rubbed the side of his nose and murmured sympathetically. "My dear lady, you are a life saver. A fortune saver," he added with a small laugh. "But I still have one problem." He gestured to the bags of dust and nuggets laid out across the top of the counter. "I can't very well go walking through the Wild West Gate with that in plain sight. I've got to look like someone who's been in the field for months, accumulating it. Do you have a period-style leather satchel, perhaps, that I could carry everything in?"
Goldie smiled in what she probably considered her most winsome manner. "I have just the thing. A set of saddlebags brought uptime by one of my agents, for you, no charge. I'll just go and get them."
She vanished into the back of her shop yet again.
Chuck was tempted to steal back his bills, just lying there on the counter, but he didn't want to risk being arrested when he came back. His fake ID was good but why take unnecessary chances? Besides, getting caught by his boss for his little extracurricular activities on TT-86 would be bad for his health. Permanently.
He and Goldie concluded their business with a handshake, and Farley headed for the nearest public restroom to ditch his clothes, settle the heavy bags of gold into his carrying harness, and don his toga for the Roman gate. He rejoined Marcus, who waited quietly with his luggage. He smiled at the younger man, then headed up the ramp with the other tourists.
By the time Goldie discovered the scam and reported it, he'd be long gone. Chuck laughed aloud, softly, drawing a curious look from the slave he'd purchased all those years ago. Yes, he'd have given a great deal to see the look on her face under all that purple hair. Amateurs. Still chuckling, he slid his time card with its fake identification into the reader, had his departure time and date duly logged, and gestured to Marcus. The young man hoisted the baggage and followed silently through the gaping portal in the concrete wall of Time Terminal Eighty-Six.
Unable to leave his apartment, he felt so ill, Skeeter-in looking for ways to make some illegal profit during his convalescence, hit quite suddenly on the answer. Something Marcus had once said brought new inspiration when Skeeter needed it most. He was still hung over and hurting, a particularly nasty throb where Farley had struck the back of his skull. Or whoever it had been. He was also, however, running out of time. So he quietly bought up a supply of small glass bottles, corks, and paper labels from various outfitters, ordering them over the computer and asking to have them delivered immediately to his apartment. When everything arrived, Skeeter got busy, diligently gluing handwritten labels onto each filled, corked bottle of tapwater, tinged just slightly with a drop of ink. The longer he counted the potential profits to be had in the patent medicine business, the more cheerful he grew, despite headache and hangover from too much alcohol combined with too much chloroform. Each label exclaimed in gorgeous, "antique" script (Skeeter could, among other odd skills, forge just about any signature he'd ever seen): MIRACLE WATER-DIRECT FROM DOWNTIME IMPORTER! FAMOUS SPRINGS OF CAUTERETS! OWN A BOTTLE OF MYSTIC HISTORY FROM GALLIA COMATA, AD 47! A THOUSAND PASSIONATE NIGHTS GUARANTEED WITH ANCIENT WORLD'S MOST SOUGHT-AFTER LOVE POTION