"But he won't be born for a hundred years!" I gasped. There was a silence. Then I smiled at my visitor. I had to smile. He was pulling my leg. He did it the best, the soberest way possible—but he was pulling my leg. There would be a place for him on TV, I thought, and said so.
"But I'm not joking," he insisted. "Everything I told you is true, Mr. Foley. Here is what I want you to do. For as long as necessary, perhaps until my death in 1959, I want you to protect me and my invention. I'll pay you a hundred dollars a week for as long as I live, plus expenses."
A hundred and expenses was more than I averaged, but I didn't say that. I said, "What do I have to protect you against?"
"Why, didn't I say? My great great—"
"Great great," I said for him, "grandson. Look, jack. You're talking in riddles. Why don't you spit straight out whatever you want to say? Your great great great great grandson can't possibly want to harm you because, damn it, he hasn't been born yet. Which leaves us where?"
"Oh, but you're wrong. He doesn't want to harm me specifically. He merely wants to stop me from completing my invention. When he discovered I was going to hire you to protect me he decided to kill you as a warning to me. He tried three times and missed three times so I know you're pretty resourceful, Mr. Foley. I'd feel that my invention and I are safe in your hands."
"First you say my family's trying to kill me, then you say your four times grandson. Well, which is it?"
"Both. That is, my relative employs mental suggestion on your relatives, using them as agents. They have no reason to kill you, do they?"
"No," I admitted.