Parking, Unlimited
I could have taken that three hundred dollars and gone to school for a year, by washing dishes two hours a night. I had worked for that money, too; shocking wheat for twelve hours a day in the August sun is no vacation. But Slim Coleman convinced me that we could run that three hundred into enough to take us both for four years.
I hadn’t even had time to get a haircut—and I did want a haircut; now it was pretty shaggy.
But Slim, diplomat that he is, didn’t even seem to notice my hair. “I’ve got a real deal,” he said, and his deep eyes were shining with enthusiasm. “Have you got any money?”
“Some,” I said cautiously.
“It takes three hundred. Have you got that much?”
I had intended to say no, but Slim has a way of fixing his deep, somber eyes on you that gives ineffable dignity even to a touch. “Okay,” I said hopelessly. “What’s the bite?”
“Well, you see, it’s like this.” We went into a drug store and ordered cokes, and Slim characteristically insisted on paying for them when he probably couldn’t have bought a package of cigarettes. I let him pay, too. I had three hundred and one dollars, and I had no intention of parting with a nickel of it—except a dollar for a haircut.
“I was using the brain-finder and I ran across the owner of this unused garage in the Loop. His name is Richard LaBombard and he’s got a lot of parking lots through the Loop, and you know what he’s doing?”
I saw the waitress stare at me. I swallowed and tried to listen to Slim. “No.”
Slim was staring at the waitress. “He loads them up with used cars every day so those who are hunting a parking place can’t get in,” he said absently. “You know what he wants?”
“Well, no.” I never could figure those things, but Slim could see the angles a mile away. He was always good at that.
“He’s made an application for a permit to build a parking ramp that will cover a solid block down in the middle of the Loop. Now, if he can build a place to park eight or ten thousand cars, naturally that one spot is going to be the best business spot in the city. And Richard LaBombard holds leases or options on half the store space around that block. He stands to make millions.”
“Where does my three hundred come in?”
Slim ignored the acidulousness in my voice. “Well, as I say, I followed him with the brain-finder and found him holding hands with the mayor’s wife at a skating rink—and the next day I—ah—persuaded him to give me an option to lease this building on the edge of the Loop.”
“You mean you blackmailed him.”
“That’s a harsh word. I prefer ‘persuaded’ myself. After all, he wouldn’t want something like that to come up just when he’s finagling for that permit, would he? Anyway, I paid five dollars for the option.”
“That’s unusual. You’ve got some of your own money in this deal.”
Like a gentleman, Slim ignored that thrust. “Tomorrow is the first. I’ve got to raise two hundred and fifty for a month’s rent. We’ll need fifty more for deposits on light, heat, and power. We’ll make a million within a month. We split fifty-fifty.”
“How do you make the million?”
Slim looked around. Nobody was near; he leaned close and whispered. “This is the invention of the century. We can solve the parking problem of the entire city. You know how it is—you can’t even get into a parking lot after ten a.m. Lots of businesses are threatening to put branches out in the suburbs.”
“Yes?”
“The parking problem must be solved if the city is to survive,” Slim said dramatically.
“Okay, but how can you make any more out of an old building than anybody else?”
He whispered again. “I can create a magnetic field that will slow electrons down to almost zero velocity. A car will shrink to about four inches long.” He stared at me intently. “Do you see what that will mean?”
I sighed. “I’m afraid I do. If it works, you can pack a million cars in a space that ordinarily would hold about a thousand.” I tried to stop my enthusiasm, but it was too late. The idea was taking hold. “And that garage is right across the street from Newton’s, the biggest department store in the city.”
“The parking problem was intensified last week when they abolished parking on the street so the afternoon traffic could get through. Boy, this is the spot for us!” Slim said.
“Will it take all of three hundred dollars?” I asked Slim.
He nodded gravely, “Every cent. And then it will be a shoestring.”
“Wouldn’t two hundred and ninety-nine be enough?”
“No,” said Slim. He looked back at me. He had always been that way; he never compromised with my money.
I shuddered when I saw my hair in the mirror as we left. But, I knew I’d better keep the dollar for cigarettes. …
We paid the first month’s rent; I put up the deposits, and Slim brought a bunch of wire and stuff from his basement, and we worked till one o’clock winding gadgets and building a regular stall to run a car into. This garage had a ramp going to the basement floor, and we decided to use that floor. Also, there was an old freight elevator up to the second and third floors, and we could park a few on the main floor and send a few upstairs when we had time, because of course we didn’t want the secret to get out.
Slim tried the squeezer-upper when he got it finished. He set a couple of old sawhorses inside and, turned on the juice. It was uncanny to see those things shrink. You could even hear the legs scrape on the concrete floor as they pulled together. In just
