Deadline at Dawn

“I put it in my pocket, and I groomed myself up a little, and I went back there with it. All that was in my mind was that maybe they could put me in the way of doing a little work, even if it was only tightening a lamp socket.

“I got there, and I rang the bell, and no one came to the door. I kept ringing away, and no one answered. This was in the early part of the afternoon. I started to leave, but I didn’t make a clean break of it. I sort of loitered around outside the place, wondering what to do next. Then a delivery boy came out of one of the other buildings close by, and noticed me looking up at the place still waiting for an answer, and without my asking him he came out with there was no one in the house, they’d all gone to their country place for the summer the week before. I asked him how was it they hadn’t boarded up the door and lower windows, the way they usually do in such a case. He said he understood one member of the family had stayed behind a few days to finish up some business; probably the house would be closed up proper when he got through and was ready to follow the rest. I asked him if he had any idea when would be the best time for me to find this one person in. He didn’t know any more than I did about it, but he suggested what my own common sense should have told me without asking: to try in the evening.

“So I went back to my room and I waited for the evening, and it was while I was waiting that the idea first started in to grow. You know; I don’t have to tell you what it was.”

“I know,” she acquiesced.

“It grew without my noticing it, and those kind of growths are bad ones. They’re like weeds, they’re hard to rip up once they get a start on you. And everything helped to — to water it, you might say. I was down to my last dime, I couldn’t get any supper. When you’re down to a dime, you can’t spend it, not even on coffee and a cruller; you might need it more the next day than you do right then — you’re afraid to let go of it. I’d been dodging being put out of my room for over two weeks past, and that’s about as long as you can stretch that; that was going to come any minute. Well, the thing sprouted like a stinkweed, while I sat there on the edge of my bed all afternoon long, throwing the key up and down in front of me with my hand.

“Around seven, just a little past dark, I went out and headed for there a second time.” He smiled at her bleakly. “Now the excuses stop, and you can listen to the rest of it without making allowances. I came to the corner below, and stopped a minute, and this is what I saw from there. There was a light on, coming from the lower windows, so I’d come back in time — if that was what I’d come back for, to catch this one person in. And there was a taxi in front of the door, standing waiting for someone. Right while I was looking, the light went out, and a minute later a man and a woman came out of the door, on their way to the taxi. I had plenty of time to catch them before they got in. They took their time, they weren’t in any hurry. I could have run up to them from where I was, or hollered to them to attract their attention, and they would have stood and waited a minute.

“My feet just took root there and wouldn’t let me move. I stood there quiet, watching them go, waiting for them to go. I didn’t know which of the two belonged in the house, and which had stopped by for the other. But I could tell they were going out for the evening, they were going to be gone for hours. She had on a long dress and he had on a tux, I could see it from where I was. And when people dress like that they’re not coming back right away, inside the next hour or so.

“They got in the cab and they went away, and I went away too. I walked around the block, with my hand in my pocket feeling the key, fighting the idea. I came back to it again from the other side, and I turned and walked around the block again, in the other direction. I fought hard, all right, but I guess I didn’t fight hard enough. My stomach was empty, and you don’t fight so good that way. I hadn’t brought my kit with me, but I did have a couple of lightweight tools in my pocket, just about what I’d need. This time you don’t have to strain your imagination; they didn’t get separated from the rest and get into my pocket by accident, I’d picked them out and put them there myself.

“Once I even tried to drop the key into a rubbish can that I passed, to kill the temptation. But it wouldn’t work; inside of two minutes I’d weakened, and gone back, and picked it out again. Then I hurried up after that, came back around the corner, and marched straight up to the door without any more dillydallying. Well, I’d lost the bout. And at first it felt awfully good to lose too, don’t let them kid you about that.”