“Don’t be a fool, Fischer,” Manning called. "The fumes will floor us. You’ll never get out.”
“I’ll get out. But you won’t.”
Manning measured the distance. Too far. And a mass of film lay between him and Julia Worden’s captor, between him and the door. He eyed a length of pipe leaning against the wall. Would he have a chance to grab and hurl it to distract Fischer? He crouched. Julia Worden gasped as the knife touched her throat.
“I warned you,” Fischer snapped.
“All right,” Manning replied, trying not to sound tense. “But give her a chance, Fischer. She’s tried to be your friend. Pull her closer to the door.” He was also thinking of all the kids and their teachers, and aware of what was going to stream into each classroom.
Fischer hauled Julia Worden to the brick wall, extended his hand and scraped a bunch of matches. Manning didn’t wait to see if the pyro’s eyes would divert to the flaring flame. Gambling on it, he scooped up the length of pipe and lunged, shouting.
“Grab the knife, Julia!”
He had to chance that she would and could. But more important were the lives of all those kids. Swinging the pipe up, he desperately batted a projecting overhead sprinkler. There was time for only one blow. It had to be enough to shatter the brass loops holding the locking unit so that an alarm would ring in automatically.
The pipe slipped from his stinging fingers as Julia Worden struggled to hold the knife away. Fischer flung the flaming matches. Manning charged through them, feeling heat, smelling sulphur.
And then he had his hands on Fischer's wrist, twisting that knife away from Julia Worden. Behind him he heard film sputtering into flame. Cold water showered his face as he wrestled with Fischer. The school firebells clamored. It would ring in the alarm bureau too. Rigs would be rolling out, but they’d never respond in time to help him with this desperate maniac, strong from working on the prison honor farm — too strong for я guy who sat at a desk and rode around in a department coupe.
Manning suddenly stopped resisting. He relaxed, then suddenly ducked, flipping the off-balance pyro sprawling. Pouncing, he caught Fischer’s head between a smashing fist and the concrete floor. Again, and again until Fischer went limp. Manning looked around, coughing in the smoke, then scrambled to a fire extinguisher to complete the job the damaged sprinkler was trying to do.
It was a tougher fight, afterward, to rid himself of the teachers, the P.TA. mothers, the kids, the press, the officials downtown. He lost sight of Julia Worden, but she was waiting when he went off-duty at four.
“Fischer’s parole is revoked,” she said quietly as they strolled out to her car. “And I’ve also wired Redfield to come back and take over.”
“Why do that?” Manning asked, dismayed.
“I’m not quitting, Marshal. I want to get back up north — I have some things I want to discuss with my father and the other members of the Parole Board. I don’t know how much good it will do.”
“We can always hope,” said Manning. The light in her eyes, meeting his, blanked out the little lines of weariness. “You won’t be leaving tonight,” he suggested. She shook her head. “Then how about dinner?” he asked.
“If it’s out of the city, and away from…"
“Sure," he said. “I’ll pick you up about seven.”
As she drove off he looked at the sky and smiled. Full moon tonight too.
Fletcher Flora
The Spent Days
Cora Rogan came upon the girl at a curve in the walk where a white birch cast a pattern of light shade. She was sitting cross-legged on the grass under the birch, just at the edge of the walk, and shadows of leaves danced with the warm breeze in her hair and on her white dress.
She was playing jacks. She would lean forward and scatter the small metal pieces on the smooth concrete, and then she would toss a rubber ball into the air, letting it bounce once, and between the time it rose and fell and rose on the bounce, she would scoop up some of the jacks, whatever number was required at that particular stage of the game, and catch in the same hand the ball as it descended. She was wonderfully adept at it.
Cora stood and watched her do her twos and threes without a miss. If she was aware of Cora’s presence, she gave no sign.
“Hello,” Cora said, after a while.
The girl looked up and smiled, holding the jacks and rubber ball in her right hand. She had a small, heart-shaped face with large gray eyes. Although she was very pretty, it was not her prettiness that Cora was struck with, but the serenity in her eyes and smile that seemed to be of a piece with the way she held her hands and head and sat so quietly cross-legged on the grass.
“Hello,” she said.
“I was watching you play. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. Why should I?”
“I don’t know. It might make you nervous and cause you to miss.”
“I never get nervous, and I hardly ever miss. Only once in a while, when I get to some of the more difficult things.”
“You’re quite good, all right. I could see that.”
“Would you care to play a game with me?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Oh, it’s very simple. I’ll show you as we go along.”
“All right, but you mustn’t expect me to be much competition.”
Cora sat down beside the girl in position to use the concrete walk to play on. She could hear someone whistling a tune behind a spirea bush farther along the walk, but no one was in sight.
“You must throw out the jacks,” the girl said, “and pick them up while the ball bounces. Then you must catch the ball in the same hand with the jacks. First you do one at a time, and then two at a time, until finally you must pick them all up together. After that, there are some more difficult things to do.”
“Perhaps you’d better explain the more difficult things when we come to them.”
“Yes. I thought that would be better. What you must remember is that it’s very important how you throw the jacks out. You must try to throw them so that it’s easy to pick them up in ones or twos or threes or whatever number.”
“I see.”
“If you touch a jack you aren’t supposed to pick up, or even make it move by pushing another jack against it, that means you miss and must give up your turn.”
“All right. I think I understand it up to the more difficult things.”
“Then you may have first turn.”
She handed Cora the ball and jacks, and Cora threw out the jacks and began to play. She went through the ones all right, and through the twos, but she missed on the threes.
“That was very good for a beginning,” the girl said.
“Do you think so? Thank you.”
“If you had thrown out the threes a little more carefully, you could have gone right on.”
“I threw them too hard, I think.”
“Yes, they were too scattered for threes. The ball bounced twice before you could pick them up. Did you understand that it’s a miss if the ball bounces twice?”
“Yes. I understood that.”
“I believe I neglected to tell you.”
“That’s all right. I knew it.”
“Then it’s my turn.”
She gathered up the jacks and threw them out and began to play and was soon through the game as far as she had explained it. Then she began to do the more difficult plays, explaining each one carefully and clearly before attempting it, so that Cora would know in advance exactly what was required of her.
Some of the plays demanded considerable dexterity, but she completed them all in order, after explanations, and then she laughed with pleasure in her skill, at the same time looking at Cora ruefully because of beating her so easily.
“You’re far too good for me,” Cora said.
“Well, it’s mostly a matter of practice. I shouldn’t be surprised if you became quite good after you’ve played a while.”