I stood across the street and looked up at the McGarry Building. Beautifully designed to fit in with the buildings around the block it stood on, it was a work of beauty. On the fourteenth floor, I was greeted by a quiet man who led me into the office of the legendary McGarry. The mogol lolled back in his chair, one leg up on a lower drawer pulled out from the desk. The top button of his shirt was unbuttoned and his tie was slipped down.

“I’m Jim Young,” I said, “From the Journal-Advertiser.”

“I know who you are. I asked your editor to send you.” He had a face of marble and a voice that commanded respect. “The world knows me as a business Titan and as a public servant. There was another side to my personality that nobody knows. I don’t want to die a hypocrite, so I’ll tell you that story. If you let it out while I’m still around, I’ll deny it emphatically and your boss will no longer need your services.”

“It won’t get out.”

“When I was a young man I was foolish and ended up badly in debt. Moneylenders were ready to break my legs or my head and I had nowhere to turn. So I robbed a branch of the Little Bear grocery chain. I hid in the store until the doors were locked and the safe was open before I presented myself with an army forty-five in my hand.”

“I consider this just a loan and will pay it back when I can,” I told the manager. “Under these circumstances, it would be foolish for anyone to get hurt by this caper.”

The manager, not knowing there was no clip in the automatic, was level-headed and went along. He put the money in the bag I had brought.

“I know you will signal the police as soon as I’m out of here, but don’t anyone try to be a hero and follow me. Wait for them and then do your damnest.” Outside, I doffed my mask and the cotton gloves I was wearing and made a dash for where I had left my car. As I got in, I saw a boy, ten or twelve years old, standing at the curb looking intently at me. Damn, I thought. There goes the perfect crime. Tomorrow the police sketch artist will have my face plastered over the front pages. But it didn’t happen. The detective assigned to interview had no faith in the witness.

“Anyone can see he’s not all there,” he complained. “How will a jury see him?”

Still he asked the simple questions. “Did you see a man come out of the grocery store with a big bag?” Hesitation. Then a slurred “Yes”.

“Do you know who he was?” Hesitation again. Then, “The man in the moon”.

“See, I told you he was daft,” the officer said. Daft as a loon.”

“The detective didn’t know that even people with mental defects often have areas where they are lucent. This young boy was one of those. The kid was a classic car buff, and knew the names and nameplates of every car on the road. When he said “The man in the moon” he meant “the man driving a Moon automobile.” A check of automobile registrations for the area would have turned up half a dozen of these cars, but only one of them would have had an owner who was over his head in debt.”

“I used the money to straighten out my affairs and used the surplus to buy a heavy-duty truck, that I intended to rent out to the construction trade. I had no problem getting work through the work season, but there were long periods of time when construction was closed down and I looked for other income. Houses in those days were heated with coal, brought in by the railroads and sold at high prices, because of the lack of competition. I began making runs into the Pennsylvania mine areas to buy coal from the small independent mines that were ignored by the railroads. My delivered prices were much lower, so business boomed. I used the money coming in to add trucks and drivers. Since the business required much fuel, I began buying up service stations along my main route and adding mechanics to handle the repairs. I rented space to barbers, so the truckers wouldn’t have to stop in town to freshen up, and made a deal with a chain of work clothes dealers. I put in stores where drivers could pick up gifts and necessities to take home to their families. Once the ball started to roll everything fell into place. I built clusters of homes around the truck-stops for the people who worked there. Built strip malls for them to shop. Rival truckers found use for my facilities.”

“Somewhere along the line I found that the chain of stores I had robbed was on bad times. Foreign owned chains had them ready to shut down. I brought in money and specialists to change their operating methods and soon had them earning money again.”

“By the time I constructed this building, money was the last thing I needed. I was a highly respected business tycoon, but I still felt guilty. This will help clear my conscience. It will show that the tallest statues have feet of clay. And it will demonstrate that a man should be judged by his abilities, rather than be denigrated by his disabilities.”

“What happened to the eye-witness?” I asked.

“He went to a Swiss school that concentrated on his needs and fine-tuned with his strengths. He’s got himself a good job now.”

“Is he still a car buff?”

“You bet. Want to see a demonstration?” He pressed a button on his desk. The man who had brought me in entered. McGarry held up the page of Classic Car magazine, his fingers covering the writing below the picture. “What is this, John,” he asked.

Hesitation. Then, “Reo Speed Wagon. Designed by R. E. Olds, who built the Oldsmobile.”

“And who is this,” McGarry asked, indicating a picture on the desk of himself as a young man behind the wheel of a classic car. No hesitation this time.

“The man in the Moon”. I didn’t question the big mans story or his philosophy. After all, who was I to argue with the man in the Moon.