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Show City Motel llg The loan officer at General Bank began to hide behind his hands when he saw Harold Jackson swish through the revolving door. Even though Harold always assured him that "this time" was a sure bet, the loan officer had a sheaf of accounts payable in Mr. Jackson's f i l e. "Don't you have faith in me, Mr. Crensher?" he asked, peering down at the bank officer from his dignified height. "I'm slow, but everything will get paid back. You know I've got honorable intentions." But the gold processing machine was the Achilles heel, the Waterloo, The End. Mr. Jackson had talked his neighbors out of their municipal bonds and retirement funds. He'd even convinced his son Angus that his $5,000 savings for a new Toyota could quadruple into sufficient funds for a Porsche Turbo within six months. Now, Angus didn't care to be reminded of his father. Mr. Jackson had only wanted l i f e to work, not only for himself, but for everybody. When everyone started shouting at him and asking him how he could have lied about the gold processing machine, nothing he said made any difference to the buzzing hornets who insisted on injecting their stingers into Mr. Jackson's sense of well-being. He tried to explain that i t wasn't his fault that the inventor of the machine had had a heart attack and died because his brainchild wouldn't work for anyone else except himself and Mr. Jackson. Each time the inventor had been close to approval from the patent office, his machine always developed a minor, niggling problem in the levers or the drive shaft. "Easily remediable," the inventor had assured Mr. Jackson every time they closed the Patent Office door behind them. |