The Palace Thief

Abba Roth is an accountant born in Daly City, California. He has worked at the Priebe, Emond & Farmer firm in San Francisco “since the last days of the Eisenhower administration” and describes his life leading up to the great “trespass” that changed its course (1). While Roth was growing up in Daly City, he played third base on the high school baseball team, while his friend, Eugene Peters, played shortstop. While the two boys’ lives originally seemed “interchangeable,” their paths later “diverged” as Roth pursued a life of “discipline” and Peters drifted into work at an auto-parts dealership (3). In later years, Roth gets a job at the Priebe, Emond & Farmer firm, Peters sets up an auto-parts company that, three years after its founding, makes $2.3 million in gross sales. Over the years, while the buttoned-up Roth works dutifully and achieves promotions, the casual, risk-taking Peters achieves spectacular success and fame.

Roth understands the value of a career in accounting and looks forward to promotions, but he “indulged the small daydream that [he] might one day leave [his] studies and instead become a professor of music history at a small college” (4).