The relationship between Daniel B. Davis and John Sutton

John Sutton’s relationship with Danny Davis turns a wary first encounter into a bond of confidence, professional partnership, and personal reliance. John first considers whether Danny is someone he can vouch for; Danny eventually entrusts him with the whole of his story and asks him to take charge of what comes next. Their partnership gives Danny a dependable counterpoint to the betrayal he suffered from Miles Gentry, and lets him leave Colorado believing that his work and affairs are in trustworthy hands.

First Confidence and Legal Counsel

When John and Danny are alone, John explains that vouching for Danny to the club carries an obligation: he must be sure Danny will not cause trouble. Danny assures him that trouble is the last thing he wants. The exchange begins with John cautiously assessing a newcomer, but Danny recognizes something in John’s phrasing and suspects that he is a lawyer. Once John confirms it, Danny asks whether he can make a privileged communication. John clarifies whether Danny is asking him to become a client; Danny accepts that description and says he will probably need advice.

The request marks a shift from informal scrutiny to a possible professional relationship. Danny is not merely seeking acceptance by the club: he is looking for counsel in circumstances he has not yet disclosed. John’s measured response, which distinguishes a confidential communication from retaining an attorney, gives their growing trust a practical framework. Danny’s confidence in him will later extend well beyond a fee-for-service arrangement.

Trust Becomes Partnership

As Danny’s work develops, John takes over practical responsibilities that give Danny time to concentrate on his own part of the enterprise. Jenny Sutton types descriptions, while John retains a patent attorney to help draft the claims. Danny leaves the business arrangements, including the division of shares, to John. He explicitly contrasts this decision with what happened when Miles Gentry was tempted by money: Danny believes that having John determine the arrangements will leave him less vulnerable to the same kind of betrayal. He says that he honestly does not care about money, and places the choice on a deeper test of character: either John and Jenny are the people he believes them to be, or trust itself has become impossible.

Danny does insist on naming the firm Aladdin Autoengineering Corporation. John suggests Davis & Sutton instead, making visible the difference between Danny’s attention to the venture’s identity and John’s willingness to shoulder its practical organization. John’s role is not just legal. Danny entrusts him with the work and decisions that allow the business to take shape, while Danny remains free to pursue his technical work.

A Request for Help

The partnership becomes personal when Danny, exhausted and overwhelmed, asks John to handle everything. John questions why Danny would trust him and suggests that he could remain only an attorney, advising for a fee. Danny answers that John already trusted him and that he now needs John’s help again. The appeal is reciprocal: Danny presents his request not as a business calculation but as a return of confidence already given.

Jenny’s gentle intervention supports the practical side of that trust. When she asks whether Danny’s machine can wash dishes, Danny realizes that Protean Pete can do household work as well as the commercial jobs he had been planning for it. He begins teaching Pete the tasks Flexible Frank had learned; Pete has three times as many Thorsen tubes as Frank. John’s taking over the business gives Danny the time to train the machine for domestic work, extending the consequences of their cooperation beyond patents and company shares.

Disclosure and Departure

Before leaving, Danny tells John the story of his journey, stopping at the point where he landed on a mountainside outside Boulder. He explains that he may have fallen only two feet and that deeper bulldozing at the laboratory site could have buried him alive; the collision of a returning flat wave form with existing mass might even have destroyed the surrounding area. John listens without interrupting except to smoke. Danny asks what he thinks, and John answers by referring to Danny’s account of what Los Angeles, or Great Los Angeles, will become, saying that he will judge its accuracy when he sees him again. Danny insists that his account is accurate, subject to minor slips of memory.

John decides that he has to accept Danny’s story; otherwise, he says, he himself would be stark raving mad, which would create a problem for Jenny. The response does not resolve the extraordinary claims so much as show the trust that has accumulated between them. John and Jenny drive Danny to Denver International Port. Jenny kisses him goodbye at the gate, and Danny boards the eleven o’clock shuttle to Los Angeles. John’s confidence has made possible both the practical partnership Danny leaves behind and the farewell that sends him back toward the next stage of his plans.