Free Suds In Your Eye by Mary Lasswell Page B

kindly:
    ‘Sit down, Mrs. Feeley! I hate to tell you this, but you have been swindled. These receipts are forgeries. You understand what that means, don’t you?’
    Mrs. Feeley shook her head in dumb misery.
    ‘It means that for six years this lawyer has been putting your tax money in his pocket and giving you back a receipt which he stamped “Paid” himself, instead of paying the money to the county and getting a receipt from us! If you had opened your tax bills each time they had come, you would have known something was wrong.’
    Mrs. Feeley still couldn’t take it in. It wasn’t possible. She was bound to wake up any minute now out of this evil dream.
    ‘I can see how you were taken in, all right!’ the collector went on. ‘It’s a pretty low-down piece of business; but I am afraid that unless the property is redeemed before the last of June, it will have to go up for sale. You see, when we receive no answer from the delinquent billings, we assume that the owners have moved away or abandoned the property and are letting it go for the taxes.’
    Mrs. Feeley sat shaking her head, still speechless. There was nothing to say. What could be said ever again that would make sense? Her whole world had collapsed around her head.
    ‘Of course, you’ll have to start proceedings right away to have the lawyer arrested and prosecuted. What did you say his name was?’
    Mrs. Feeley gradually came to life:
    ‘Elmer Strunk! That’s the bastard! Let me get my hands on him! They’ll pick the son-of-a-bitch up off the floor with blottin’ paper when I’m through with him! Here I been thinkin’ my property was as safe as if it was in God’s own pocket for six years!’
    ‘Now, take it easy, Mrs. Feeley! You’re not the only one that wants to get hold of Strunk! I think I can tell you about a few of his activities! He is wanted for forgery, embezzlement, and some shady oil-stock deals he pulled off. He is mixed up in some immigration chiseling too. The Chinese-American League is offering a reward for information leading to his arrest: it seems he was forging identification papers for Japanese aliens proving them to be Chinese citizens so they could escape being deported. You want to see if you can discover his hiding place, if you can, and have him arrested!’
    ‘The hell with him!’ shouted Mrs. Feeley, galvanized into action at last. ‘I’ll tend to him later! What I wanna know right now is what I gotta do to get my property back!’
    ‘I shall do everything I can to help you under the circumstances, Mrs. Feeley. But you understand that it is the state, and not me, that makes the law and the penalty.’ He turned to the secretary and said:
    ‘Miss Hicks, will you figure out the amount of the accumulated taxes on this case, also the delinquent penalty, and let me have it?’
    The secretary got busy and the collector himself looked into some big books for added information on this difficult case. Soon the girl placed a piece of paper in front of the collector.
    ‘All right, Mrs. Feeley,’ he said. ‘Here’s the bad news! It comes to a total of three hundred and thirty-one dollars—and it must be paid on or before the last day of June. I should like to give you installments on it, but it is not possible. You have to have the money in a lump sum by the thirtieth or the property will have to be sold. That is the only safe way you can do it. If you try to have someone bid for it at the sale, you are likely to lose it as the price will probably go out of sight. Those corner lots are worth a lot as a factory site now, although they were not assessed at much when you bought them years ago. This is the fifteenth of April: you’ve got ten weeks to raise the money. I really wish you the best of luck, because it’s quite a job. Think you can do it?’
    Mrs. Feeley rose and took the proffered sheet of paper containing the fateful figures.
    ‘You’re goddam right I can do it!’ she replied with dignity. ‘Ain’t