"Because I cannot stand living in your barbarous age. Because I want to return home to the world I understand."
"Hell," I said, "Angus is as good as my client right now."
"I will give you," the well-preserved middle aged man said, "ten thousand dollars to help me destroy Angus Haney's time machine."
"And win or lose you won't have my family try to kill me any more?"
"Win or lose," he said.
Great-great—I got to call him that because I never learned his name—waited for my answer while I did some of the fast thinking a private dick has to do every working day of his life. When opportunity knocks, a private dick can't pass it up. He won't keep his shingle up long if he does because the work isn't exactly steady. This, obviously, was opportunity. Ten thousand bucks worth. And ten G's in one lump sum looked a lot better than Angus Haney's indefinite hundred a week.
Did that mean I was turning on Angus Haney? Well, it's a cinch I wouldn't have been booted out of the fraternity of private eyes for it because despite what you read to the contrary in the two-bit shamus books—of noble impulses and motives pure as chivalry—a private eye is for number one and that's the end of it.
"Mister," I said, "you have got yourself a deal. When do I start?"
"You know where Angus Haney lives?"
"He gave me his card."