Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 8 — November, 1938)
Tick, Tock
by Donald Wandrei
A time bomb passes from hand to hand — with sheer horror at its explosive end.
Jud Kerrun wrapped the box carefully with paper cut from a grocer’s brown sack and tied it with ordinary white string. He took a stencil from the top of the work bench, laid it across the lower right surface of the package, and briskly rubbed a black wax crayon across the stencil. When he moved the stencil, the package had an address in bold, block letters: Leslie Gramm, 307 Front St.
He held the package tight against his ear. It said, in a whisper so faint that he was not absolutely certain he had heard it:
Tick, tock.
Jud put the package into a cardboard box on a layer of old newspapers. He added a red sweater to the package, and rolled the two items with the newspapers, and tucked the bundle under one arm.
Then he pulled his gloves off and tossed them aside.
That was the way to do it. Even if everything went wrong, the cops wouldn’t find fingerprints, clues, or handwriting.
He rubbed the back of a hand across the stubble on his chin as he opened the door. Sunlight of late afternoon slanted briefly inside the combination workshop and garage. The light touched on a battered six-year old machine and the work bench beside it, its top littered with pieces of wire, lengths of metal and a few spilled flakes of black powder. All that stuff could be cleaned up later. Time counted, now. Time was saying:
Tick, tock.
Jud closed and locked the door as he went out. He squinted his eyes till they became used to the sun. He rubbed his chin again, nervously, with the back of his clenched fist. Then he looked at the fist and scowled. He let his arm hang loose as he walked around the side of a two-story frame house badly in need of paint.
A caterpillar was crawling at the edge of the grass beside the path. Jud went three steps out of his way to mash it.
He angled back to the path again with a loose, shambling gait. His shoulders slouched. His whole body had a kind of slouch. Even his soiled brown hat slid down over the ridge of his forehead as though trying to escape. He walked with a kind of hesitant weakness, a furtive pacing; yet strength ran in his thick chest and shoulders, his long, powerful arms, and a sultry, avid hotness nestled in his pale blue eyes.
“Jud!”
His jaws twitched. Damn that snooping woman!
“Jud, you going downtown?” She was a thin, tired woman, once pretty, but the years had taken the hope out of her face. An apron at her waist, she stood on the porch fluttering a slip of paper in the bird-like claw of her hand.
“Jud,” she called, “I need some things from the grocery.”
“Send the kid.”
“Pete’s out playing somewheres.”
Jud kept going. “Wait’ll he gets back.”
“But I need these for supper.”
“Whatta ya think I am, a horse?”
“Jud, where you going?”
He answered in a surly voice, “Never mind. It’s none of your damn business.” He turned on the sidewalk with never a backward glance.
He hardly saw where he was going. The hatred of Leslie Gramm that filled him churned in his brain like a sullen sea of fire. It was Gramm, the plant superintendent, who had kept him from getting to be a floor boss, or even boss of his section. Every year, some other guy got promoted, but not Jud Kerrun. Leslie Gramm didn’t like him. Leslie Gramm had it in for him. Leslie Gramm would see to it that Jud never did get a better job at better pay.
The only way for Jud to fix that was to fix Leslie Gramm. Then there’d be a new foreman, and a step-up all down the line. Jud had the seniority right. He ought to be made at least a section boss this time.
The beauty of it was, nobody had any reason to suspect Jud. He and Leslie had never done more than exchange a few words at the plant. Nobody would dream that Jud had a motive. The cops would be off on a wild-goose chase. Labor troubles, strikes, clashes between rival unions had beset the plant all summer. The unions or strikers would get the blame.
The section of dilapidated old frame houses dropped behind him. The road turned, following a long hill to his left. An empty field stretched to his right. Some kids were playing sand-lot ball on its hard surface. A cluster of onlookers, their backs to Jud, watched the game. Nobody saw him. Anyway, they were all too far out in the middle of the field to notice him.
The road curved. Jud came to a path and started climbing the hill. Half-way up, he stopped, listened to make sure he was alone, and plunged into the dense underbrush and trees.
When he stepped out into the path again several minutes later, his hat was gone, he wore the red pullover sweater, and instead of the bundle under his arm he carried only the parcel, the size of a big cigar box, the parcel that had a faint voice:
Tick, tock.
He loitered. He had passed this path often on his way to the plant. Another section of houses lay across the hill. He knew that only youngsters used the path, children going down to the field to play.
A little girl came down the path. She had stringy, taffy-colored hair, and wore a faded blue playsuit. Her bare arms and legs and back were chocolate brown from the sun. She glanced at him with the frank curiosity of the very young, but mostly her eyes strayed to his blazing red sweater.
Jud said, “Wanna earn two bits, kid?”
She stopped, eying the package that he held out. “Watcha got in there, mister?”
“Uh, a present for a guy. It’s a clock. I want him to get it right away.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Mummy told me I could only stay out for a little while.”
“This won’t take a half-hour, and you’ll have two bits to spend. All you have to do is deliver this. The address is 307 Front Street. It’s a corner house. It’s sort of a green color.”
She nodded. “It’s got a funny stone lion in front.”
“Sure, sure, that’s right. All you gotta do is leave this package there. Just ring the bell, and put it inside the screen door. You don’t need to wait. It’s a birthday present, and they’ll know who it’s from when they open it.”
He held out two coins. “Here’s fifteen cents. Hurry right back and I’ll give you the other dime.”
She looked dubious. “My mummy said—”
“You’ll get home in plenty of time. It ain’t far, nine or ten blocks. You can make it there and back in a half-hour, easy.”
“My mummy doesn’t want me to take things from grownups. She said so. She told me to keep away from strange men.”
Jud cursed under his breath. He forced a toothy smile. “There, there, that’s all right. Your mother s right about that.” He jangled the two coins. “I just thought a bright little, girl like you’d like to earn a quarter, is all. It wouldn’t hardly take twenty-thirty minutes.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off the coins. She said, with that exasperating, iron-clad, unanswerable logic of the very young and the very innocent, “Why don’t you go? If you’re going to wait for me here, you could bring the clock yourself, and come back here, and it wouldn’t cost you a quarter.”
Jud felt like spanking the infernal brat. He jangled the coins once more. “Guess I will, though I’m kinda tired walkin’. Run along. I’ll find somebody that’s smart and—”
He started to put the coins away. He was getting jittery. Somebody else might be coining along the path soon.
The receding money won her over. She thrust her hands out. “Gimme the quarter. I’ll go.”