He didn’t say anything about a bigger difference still — the one between life and death — but Wilbur was thinking it over.
Punch Any Number
by Jack Ritchie
Ever since mankind discovered the first rudimentary counting method, the fascination with numbers has endured. Add to this the basic human desire for a large return on a small investment stir well, and you have the punch called Punch Any Number.
The owner of the grocery store and I were the only ones in the place. I bought two packs of cigarettes, tore open the corner of one, and took my time about making a light.
He rang up the sale. “Stranger here?”
“Just going through.”
He grinned slightly. “Care for a little gamble?”
“Depends on what.”
He reached. under the counter and brought out a punchboard. “Ten cents a chance.”
It was one of the thousand-hole kind and it had cost him five dollars. About forty of the holes had already been punched and so he almost had his money back on that. A transparent plastic bag stapled to the side of the card held two flashlights, some tin cigarette lighters, and a few jackknives.
I took a few drags on my cigarette and studied the board.
“Man down the street got himself a flashlight,” he said encouragingly. “Nice green one.”
And probably spent a dollar doing it, I thought. The flashlights were worth maybe thirty-nine cents. “I’m already equipped. I got a jackknife and a lighter too.”
He leaned forward on the counter. “In one of them little holes there’s a piece of paper with the number 20 on it. If you get that, I pay you twenty bucks.”
I didn’t look convinced. “You’re sure nobody’s got it already? You’re not handing me a used board?”
He was faintly aggrieved. “No, mister. The jackpot’s still there.”
A dime walked against 960 to 1 odds. I put one on the counter, took the key, and punched out a slot. I unrolled the tight paper. Nothing.
I fished for some more change. “Just like peanuts. Try one and you can’t stop.”
I lost thirty cents more and then punched out eight down and seven to the right on the center panel. I unrolled the ribbon and handed it to him.
His mouth dropped,
“First time I ever won anything in my life,” I said.
It took him a little sad head-shaking before he recovered enough to ring up a No Sale and hand me two tens.
The next punchboard was at Swede’s Tavern, a block farther up the main street.
I collected another twenty there.
That was all for this town. I drove on to Eaton City.
It began yesterday when Irene Rogers came into my office and told me what was bothering her.
“How long has your husband been missing?” I asked her.
“Sam was supposed to phone me on Monday, or at the latest Tuesday. He didn’t.”
It was Thursday afternoon. “He hasn’t been gone long. Maybe he’s just on a drunk.”
“He doesn’t drink. Except for a small glass of beer now and then when he has to.”
“I don’t want to drive business away, Mrs. Rogers, but why don’t you go to the police? There are a lot more of them than there are of me and they’ve got a nice efficient Missing Persons Bureau.”
She was in her middle twenties and her green eyes seemed to weigh everything they saw. “If there’s nothing really wrong, I don’t want to get Sam into trouble.”
“How could that happen?”
She studied me thoughtfully. “Anything I tell you is just between us? It doesn’t travel?”
“It stays with me.”
She took that. “Sam and Pete — that’s Pete Cable — have themselves a little business. Pete goes on the road and sells punchboards anywhere he can — taverns, grocery stores, filling stations. The cards go for five dollars apiece. Each board gives the usual prizes — cheap knickknacks — but there’s also a cash prize to make it really interesting. Twenty dollars. Whoever buys the board from Pete has to pay that money out of his own pocket when the number is punched, but even with that it still seems a good deal to a buyer.” She took a cigarette out of an ordinary metal case and tamped it on the lid. “There are a thousand holes at ten cents each on every board. The buyer stands to recover the original five dollars he paid for the board, plus about fifty before anybody punches out the money prize. After he pays out the twenty, he still has a nice profit. It could run to fifty dollars — depending on luck.”
I lit her cigarette. “But it doesn’t work out that way?”
“No. They’re special boards and Pete knows which slot holds the money prize. He keeps a list of all the places where he’s sold the cards and then phones it back to me. My husband follows his route three or four days later, buys a couple of gallons of gas, or a glass of beer, and gets invited to play the board. He wins the twenty.”
I wondered if all of this still amounted to penny ante. “How many boards does Pete manage to get rid of on his trips?”
“Ten to fifteen a day.”
I took twelve as a rough average. That meant that Sam Rogers, moving in Pete’s footsteps, picked up about two hundred and forty bucks a day and they probably split that fifty-fifty.
Irene Rogers went on. “Pete always leaves the boards in small towns. We found that in the cities there’s more of a chance of getting into trouble.”
“You said that your husband was supposed to phone you. Don’t you travel with him?”
“No. I usually stay at a hotel during the month or two we’re in one territory. Right now I have a room in the Washington Hotel. Pete phones his list of places to me and I relay them to Sam on the road. He phones me every third or fourth day, ordinarily.”
“How long have you three been working this?”
“About three years.”
Then give or take, Sam’s share came to about thirty-five grand a year and I didn’t think he bothered to give Uncle Sam any part of it. And I also thought about something else. Thirty-five thousand a year and a room at the Washington Hotel just didn’t mix. It was a four-dollar-and-up place, and the up never went past seven. “Does Pete know that your husband is missing?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I didn’t think that he’d want me to come to somebody like you.” She flicked ash into the tray. “Last Wednesday when Sam phoned, I gave him Pete’s latest list. He should have gone through it by either Monday or Tuesday and then phoned me again. But I haven’t heard from him.”
“Maybe he just didn’t get through with his collections.”
She shook her head. “Even if he hadn’t, he still would have phoned. At least by now.”
“Where is Pete Cable now?”
“I don’t know. But when he’s in town he usually stays at the Medford.”
And that told me that Pete Cable, at least, believed in living it up.
Her eyes flickered. “I’d rather not have you see him just yet. Not until you’ve given this a try by yourself.”
“Do you have a copy of the list you gave your husband the last time he phoned?”
She opened her purse and handed me a sheet of paper.
I read the first few lines.
Rockford—
Jack’s Garage — L-18-2
Vi & Dick’s Tavern — M-9-11
Harold’s Tap — L-6-14
New Auburn—
Red Star Market — R-12-16
Clover Tavern — M-17-1
“There are forty-seven places on the list,” Irene explained. “The letters L, M, and R, mean the left, middle, or right panels. The first number means down. The second means to the right.” She produced a photograph of her husband.