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.”

Hesitantly, as though he, too, was changing his mind, Jud gave her the parcel and fifteen cents. “I’ll give you the other dime soon as you’re back.”

She shook her head obstinately. “No. I want it now. How do I know you’ll really wait for me?”

Jud could cheerfully have thrashed her. But he was almost in a panic. He couldn’t stand here and argue with the little fool. The minutes were slipping by.

“All right. Here’s the other dime. Now hurry! It’s pretty near six-thirty. You gotta get the clock there by seven sharp. And hang onto this, don’t drop it!”

“Why?”

Jud nearly yelled, “It’s the guy’s birthday and he won’t be home tonight, see? He’s gotta have this by seven o’clock! Run along, now, hurry! It’s liable to get busted if you drop it!”

She went skipping down the path. Jud watched, his face working, till she was out of sight around a bend. He rubbed the back of his fist tightly across the stubble on his chin. Then he faded into the woods.

He took off the red sweater, stuffed it in the empty shoebox, and rolled it up in the newspapers. The bundle looked the same as before. He put his battered brown hat on again.

A few minutes later, he strode down the path with the bundle under his arm. He savagely kicked a couple of loose stones out of his way. When he reached the sidewalk, he rolled a cigarette and stuck it in a corner of his mouth. It dribbled sparks as he sauntered homeward.

The two dimes and nickel made the little girl’s palm sweat. After a while, she put a dime and a nickel in a hand-kerchief, made a ball out of it, and pushed it down in the pocket of her jumper suit. She kept the other dime in her hand.

She trudged along the path at the base of the hill. After the equivalent of a couple of long blocks, the hill came to an end. The field across the road also ended. In the near corner a group of boys was playing softball.

By the time she came back this way, it would be getting dark and the game would be over. It was more fun watching a game than carrying a funny old package that went:

Tick, tock.

Anyway, she had only seven or eight more blocks to go, and it wouldn’t take long to get there. She could easily make it by seven o’clock. And what if she was a few minutes late? She couldn’t see that it made any difference if the man got his darn old clock at seven or whenever, so long as he got it. The thing was, she couldn’t stay out late. But she’d be home before dark. There was plenty of time.

She crossed the road and dawdled, watching the game. She knew several of the boys. They yelled at her and she talked back fliply. Other boys, a few girls, and a couple of men watched the game They were sitting along a bench made of weather-stained two by fours.

They moved over to make room for her. She sat holding the package in her lap, the package with a voice that whispered ever so faintly:

Tick, tock.

It was a funny kind of birthday present to give, she thought. She took the package and jiggled it against her ear, but it didn’t rattle. It must be a pretty big clock. An alarm clock, maybe. Then she put the package back in her lap and forgot about it. Her thoughts strayed to the game.

Jimmy Roth was at the plate, jumping and yelling at the pitcher. The pitcher threw the ball underhand and Jimmy swung with all his might. Wham! The ball flew out over the infield, dropped between left and center, and went bounding away with both fielders hot after it.

Everybody was yelling at everybody else, somebody on second came tearing home, and Jimmy scooted around the bases so fast that he slipped and fell at third. The ball sailed in toward home plate. Jimmy picked himself up and raced for the bag. The ball beat him, but the catcher couldn’t hold on to it. Jimmy crossed the plate with a home run as the ball bounced off the catcher’s glove and spurted toward the bench.

It was lots of fun. The side went down.

“What’s the score?” the little girl asked a man next to her.

“Sixteen to twelve.”

“What inning?”

“Last of the fourth.”

The game went on, and grew more exciting. The other side tied it up at sixteen to sixteen in the next half-inning.

The man beside her started to leave, and jostled her in doing so. The package slid off her lap. She grabbed for it. It teetered on her knees, almost dropping to the ground before her fingers got hold of the string.

She held the package against her ear, but the jiggling didn’t seem to have hurt it any. The voice inside still murmured:

Tick, tock.

She jumped to her feet. Absorbed in watching the game, she had forgotten all about delivering the package.

“What time is it, mister?” she asked the man who was moving away.

He looked at a wrist watch. “Quarter of seven.”

She hurried off, half skipping, half running, for a couple of blocks before she slowed down. Seven o’clock, seven o’clock, kept repeating in her head. That was when he had told her she must deliver the package. No, he had said to deliver it before seven. Before seven. Ring the bell and leave it before seven. But running made her lose her breath. She was panting. Why hurry? Why run your legs off for a darn old clock? A clock that couldn’t say anything but:

Tick, tock.

She came to a small candy store and looked in the window longingly. Licorice sticks, taffy, horehound, chewing gum, candy bars, chocolates, caramels, mint wafers, all day suckers, jelly drops, lozenges, marshmallows, crackerjack, and other sweets lay temptingly spread out. The dime itched her palm moistly. What to buy? Five cents worth of mixed candy and a box of cracker jack? Or an all day sucker and a vanilla ice cream cone? Or a big double cone, chocolate and strawberry?

A swinging movement caught her gaze. Her eyes strayed to a wall clock with a pendulum. The hands stood at twelve minutes of seven. Every time the pendulum swung, she fancied she could hear it, and such a big clock would make a bigger noise than the clock she was carrying, a great big:

TICK, TOCK.

Twelve minutes to seven. Six blocks to go. It really hadn’t ought to take more than ten minutes. But it would be longer, it would be after seven, if she stopped now and went in the store to buy a double ice cream cone, chocolate and strawberry.

She reluctantly turned away from the windowful of candies. Her nose felt funny where she had held it against the glass. She rubbed it until the tingle went away.

A block farther, she reached a corner drugstore. The window had another one of those big clocks with a pendulum. The hand stood between ten and nine minutes of seven. She guessed she’d better hurry a little faster, or she wouldn’t quite make it.

Before she could start running, a boy caught up with her and began to pass her, walking at a brisk, crisp clip. He was taller than she, and perhaps a year older. His tousled head sprouted from a scrawny neck. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets so that his elbows flapped as he moved. His stubby nose hung like a round little marble over his short upper lip. It gave his face a nasty look as though he had been caught in the act of stealing pennies from a playmate. She vaguely remembered seeing him on the bench at the ball game.

He looked at the little girl, and slowed up beside her. “Whatcher name?”

There was no answer, except that she hurried more.

“Watcher name?” He kept pace with her.

“You leave me alone!”

“Watcher hurry? You ain’t scared or nothin’, are you?”

She clenched the package tighter under her arm. She could almost feel its faint sound of:

Tick, tock.

The dime slid around in her damp palm. She wedged it between thumb and forefinger. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Watcha scared of then, ’fraidy cat?”

“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.

He went back in the garage. He put into a box all the shotgun shells from which he had emptied the powder. The next thing to do was bury them.

Jud wondered just how it had happened. He had built the bomb to go off at seven, or whenever the package was opened. Maybe Leslie Gramm was having a birthday dinner. Maybe he waited till he had all his presents before opening them.

Jud finished with the shotgun shells. He was getting hungry. Any minute, now, his wife ought to call him to supper.

He started cleaning up the pieces of metal, wire, and materials on the work bench. A few minutes more, and he’d be through by seven-thirty.

The noise of the opening door made him whirl around, his face twitching. Damn that snooping woman! He’d ordered her never to interrupt him when he was in the garage. She’d never dared cross him before. He’d smack her for this!

But it wasn’t his wife in the doorway. It was a cop. The cop looked at the work bench, the betraying pieces, and the telltale flakes of spilled powder.

Jud made a wild dive for the alley door of the garage. A powerful grip seized his shoulder and swung him around. Then fists like exploding dynamite were smashing his face, beating his features to pulp, breaking him in a kind of deliberate fury.

Through the pain and body concussions of those blows, Jud heard the cop’s voice, harsh and murderous, in snatches of phrase:

“Don’t care what they do to me down at H. Q. Stand up, guy, and take it. You’ve got lots more coming. Hash is all you’ll be when I’m through... Told your wife and she fainted dead in her tracks. Said you were out here.

“This paper in my fist, it’s the biggest piece of anything we found after the blast... List of groceries and the name they were to be charged to — Kerrun. She sends the kid off to get the groceries and you give him a bomb to deliver, only he didn’t get there in time.

“God, your own kid...”