“I’m not scared at all.”
“Then watcha runnin’ for, huh?”
“I’m in a hurry. I have to bring this to a man. He has to have it by seven o’clock.”
“Why?”
“It’s his birthday. He just has to have it by seven. That’s what the man said.”
“What’s in it?”
“None of your business. You leave me alone!”
He persisted, “What’s his name? How far does he live?”
“It’s written down on the box. Go away!”
But he wouldn’t leave. His eyes fastened on the coin that she held. “Watcha holdin’ that for? What’s he gonna give you for bringin’ him the box?”
She began, “He paid me already—” and broke off, fearing she shouldn’t have told him.
They were passing a grocery store. A light over the counter inside shone on the face of an alarm clock. The hands pointed to seven minutes of seven. Four blocks to go; she’d have to hurry.
She started across the street. He stayed at her side. He said, “Gimme that. I’ll take it to him.”
She shook her head, and brought her hand up to drop the dime into the single pocket of her playsuit. Her foot tripped on the curb. She stumbled forward, throwing her hands out to save herself. The package slid loose and began dropping to the sidewalk.
It happened fast. He grabbed her, tore the dime from her grasp, and snatched the package. He deliberately gave her a hard shove that sent her sliding along the cement on hands and bare knees. Then with a taunting yell he flew down the street.
She burst out crying. She picked herself up and took a few steps after him, but he was far ahead, and gaining. Her knees hurt. She looked down, and saw them scratched and bleeding with bits of sand imbedded in the skin.
She cried harder. She fumbled around for the handkerchief in her pocket and wiped her eyes. She felt the sharp edges of the other dime and the nickel through the cloth.
After a while she stopped crying. She tied a knot in the handkerchief and put it back in her pocket. She turned around, trudging back toward the candy store and a double ice cream cone, strawberry and chocolate.
He looked over his shoulder after he had run half a block. The little girl wasn’t chasing him. She was standing still, bawling. He ran hard for another block just to be safe.
Then he read the address on the package, his lips moving, “Leslie Gramm, 307 Front Street. Gee, that’s only, let’s see now, one, two, two and a half blocks more. Hey, old lady, got the time?”
An elderly woman stared down at him. She said, “Yes, my dear young fellow, I do have the time,” and walked away indignantly.
He made a face at her back and went on down the street. It couldn’t be seven yet, but close to it, maybe. The radio in a car parked at the curb spoke: “At this time every day, six fifty-five P. M., the baseball scores are brought to you through the courtesy of—”
He didn’t hear the rest. Five minutes to seven. Two and a half blocks to go. Shucks, that was a cinch. Anybody could cover two and a half blocks in five minutes.
In fact, why hurry? Why go at all? He had the dime. Nobody knew that he had the package. Maybe there was something valuable in it. Nobody would ever know the difference if he just walked off with it.
He shook the package against his ear. It didn’t rattle, but it made a sound like:
Tick, tock.
He looked at the package in disgust. A clock! It couldn’t be anything else but an alarm clock, not in a package the size of a big cigar box. Most likely one of those cheap alarm clocks that you see in drugstore windows for eighty-nine cents. It wasn’t worth even two cents to him. He couldn’t use it. He couldn’t cat it. He didn’t want it. He’d have the dickens of a time trying to trade it off or sell it.
He trudged glumly along. He had half a notion to chuck it into the road and forget about it. Let somebody else take care of the package. The dime was in his pocket. It was silly to go any farther. The dime...
“Girls don’t play fair. They always lie,” he mumbled.
The dime. She said she had already been paid. That didn’t mean anything. She was lying. It was her dime to begin with. She wanted to get rid of him. She was afraid he’d steal the clock and get the money she was hoping for. Her dime. He could take the clock to the man, and the man would pay him another dime at least. That would make twenty cents.
He might as well take the package to where it was going. He might as well try to get there by seven. Things were different now.
He turned left at the corner of the jeweler’s shop. The window was full of time-pieces — wrist watches and fob watches and clocks. Some of them weren’t running. All of them showed different hours. But a cuckoo clock in the middle had a swinging pendulum. Its hands pointed to three minutes of seven. Two blocks to go. Two short blocks. Shucks, he could make it in no time. The sooner the better, and he’d have another dime to spend. The man would give him something if he got there on time. The package itself kept reminding him to hurry, with its insistent sound of:
Tick, tock.
He legged it for the next block. He could see the house, now, with a gray stone lion out in front. The lion squatted in the middle of the lawn. His back had a hollow place full of water, where the robins and sparrows took baths.
There were lights in the house. Cars stood along the curb. As he drew nearer, he heard quick, harsh blasts from a radio in the house. Someone was twirling the dial from station to station. He eyed the cars, all five of them. It looked like a party.
Cars. Unwatched. His steps slowed. He remembered the time he had swiped a robe from a car on Center Street. And the purse he snatched from the seat beside a lady who stopped for a traffic light. Cars. Loot. The clock suddenly became small in his eyes. At most he’d get a dime for it. But the line of autos...
He didn’t see anyone around. He entered the second car. For a few moments he peered out the windows, ready to jump and run. But nobody had seen him. He was safe. It was a cinch. He opened the dashboard tray, looked at the back seat, and poked into the side pockets. No luck. The only thing he found was a yellow case half full of powder. Girl stuff. The case might be gold. He put it in his pocket.
He took the package and slid out.
The radio in the house blared: “See the new Meridian watch at your jeweler’s, the gift of the century. All styles, all prices, beginning at only thirteen ninety-five. If it’s Meridian it’s standard, the watch of the world. The time is thirty seconds before seven o’clock, Meridian watch time. We now bring you a special bulletin from the Radio News Service...”
He hesitated. Thirty seconds to seven o’clock. The third car looked black and shiny. The package under his arm was marking off the seconds:
Tick, tock.
Jud Kerrun watched his newspaper-wrapped bundle go up in flames. The red sweater made a smell of burning cloth. His wife didn’t know about it. She wouldn’t even remember it. He had told her months ago that he gave it away.
He liked the stealth, the leisure, the casual way he had worked. Phrases ran through his head, bits of information that he had picked up at the plant simply by keeping his ears open. Leslie Gramm saying, “Friday’s fine. But don’t be late. We always have dinner at seven on the dot.” And another time, “The seventeenth of next month? Afraid I can’t make it, old chap. That’s my birthday and I’ll be spending the evening at home.”
A blast echoed hollowly in the distance.
Jud hadn’t realized how tense he was until the explosion came. He didn’t start nervously. He didn’t react at all. He had been expecting it all the time. But something inside him snapped.
The fire smouldered down to ashes.