The Talking House Made Me Rich

We were getting ready to buy a place and get married, and the agent, working within our budget, pushed a thirty-year-old dump on us.

My girlfriend blew up on the spot, said the agent was judging us by our wallets.

All her friends lived in big, single-floor units, and she threatened that if I dared buy some run-down shoebox as our marriage home, we were done.

I was about to smooth things over, say we could look at other places, when an old, aged voice suddenly popped into my head:

"This girl doesn't know a good thing when she sees it. I've got a hundred pounds of gold hidden in these walls, enough to buy ten of those big fancy units!"

"Won't even take a windfall dropped right in her lap. No wonder some folks stay broke their whole lives!"

……

My whole body went stiff. I stared at the wall between the living room and the bedroom, certain I was hearing things.

That wall really was noticeably thicker than the others in the place.

A hundred pounds of gold. At today's price, over eight hundred a gram, that came out to more than forty million dollars!

Sarah Hughes gave me a shove. "What are you spacing out for? What's so great about this dump?"

I snapped back to the moment. Beside me, Agent Lawrence was still smiling and fawning. "Miss, the place is a little old, sure, but the location's unbeatable. Five hundred yards from the subway, good school district, and the price is really—"

Sarah cut him right off. "A thirty-year-old dump, five hundred square feet for eight hundred grand, and you call that cheap?"

Jackson Lawrence's face went red with embarrassment.

Sarah shot me a glare. "I'm telling you right now. If you dare buy this dump as our marriage home, you and I are finished. I won't be humiliated like that!"

I was about to say a few soothing words when that old voice piped up again:

"Tch, a pack of blind fools. I've still got three million dollars in cash stashed in the ceiling, plus that hundred pounds of gold in the walls. Tens of millions in assets, and you call my place a dump?"

"One bed can't sleep two different kinds of people. The Talking House woman's got no eyes in her head, the man's a spineless pushover. A match made in heaven!"

My knees buckled and I nearly hit the floor.

Three million in cash in the ceiling too?

I couldn't help sneaking a glance up.

It was an old building with precast concrete slabs, a cheap gypsum drop ceiling underneath. Nothing looked off about it.

Jackson hurried closer. "Sir, are you thinking this place isn't so bad either? The old lady's desperate to sell. Her late husband was an accountant at a foreign firm before he retired, a real good man. Just went suddenly, didn't even leave a will."

"She's scared living here alone and wants to go overseas to stay with her daughter. That's why she listed it this low. Market value's a hundred and ten grand at the very least."

An accountant at a foreign firm, and where would he get a hundred pounds of gold? Why hide it in the walls?

"What about the owner's other family?"

"Just the one daughter, already settled abroad. Flying back isn't easy for her. The old lady said everything in the place is thrown in free. Furniture, appliances, do whatever you want with them. She's not taking a thing."

My stomach lurched.

So the gold in the walls, the cash in the ceiling, all thrown in free too?

Pretending to look the place over, I ambled up to that thick wall and rapped it twice. The sound came back dull. Hollow.

Jackson spoke up beside me. "The best thing about these old dumps is you can knock walls around however you like. See this wall between the living room and the bedroom? It was probably put up later, it's not load-bearing. Tear it out and redo the layout, and the living room's twice the size. Just as good as new construction."

Afraid he'd catch on, I quickly pulled my hand back and turned toward the bathroom, pretending to check the pipes.

"Any chance the price could come down a little more?"

Jackson's eyes lit up. "Eight hundred grand's already rock bottom. But if you really want it, sir, I'll go put in a word, see if I can knock off another two or three thousand."

Sarah stared at me in disbelief. "Kevin Perry, have you lost your mind? Do you actually want to buy this dump?"

"Have you not seen how bad the paint's peeling? The bathroom's tiny, the kitchen doesn't even have a window. You think this is the kind of place I deserve to live in?"