Hotel

One solitary thing in line of duty gave Clancy not the slightest trouble - directing traffic. He enjoyed it. If, somehow, Clancy could have reached back into history to prevent the invention of the automatic traffic light, he would have done so gladly.

Ten minutes ago, when he realized that the lights at Canal and City Park Avenue had failed, he radioed the information in, parked his motorcycle, and took over the intersection. He hoped that the street lighting repair crew would take its time in coming.

From the opposite side of the avenue, Clancy saw the gray Ford sedan slow and stop. Taking his time, he strolled across. Keycase was seated, motionless, as when the car stopped.

Clancy surveyed the offside rear wheel which was resting on its rim.

"Flat tire?"

Keycase nodded. If Clancy had been more observant, he would have noticed that the knuckle joints of the hands on the steering wheel were white.

Keycase, through a veil of bitter self-recrimination, was remembering the single, simple factor his painstaking plans had overlooked. The spare tire and jack were in the trunk. To reach them, he must open the trunk, revealing the far coats, the silver bowl, the salver and the suitcases.

He waited, sweating. The policeman showed no sign of moving.

"Guess you'll have to change the wheel, eh?"

Again Keycase nodded. He calculated. He could do it fast. Three minutes at the most. Jack! Wheel wrench! Spin the nuts! Wheel off! The spare on! Fasten! Throw wheel, jack and wrench on the back seat! Slam the trunk closed! He could be away. On the Expressway. If only the cop would go.

Behind the Ford, other cars were slowing, some having to stop before easing into the center lane. One pulled out too soon. Behind him, rubber squealed. A horn blasted in protest. The cop leaned forward, resting his arms on the door beside Keycase.

"Gets busy around here."

Keycase swallowed. "Yes."

The cop straightened up, opening the door. "Ought to start things moving."

Keycase drew the keys from the ignition. Slowly, he stepped down to the road. He forced a smile. "It's all right, officer. I can handle it."

Keycase waited, holding his breath as the cop surveyed the intersection.

Clancy said good naturedly, "I'll give you a hand."

An impulse seized Keycase to abandon the car and run. He dismissed it as hopeless. With resignation, he inserted the key and opened the trunk.

Scarcely a minute later, he had the jack in place, wheel nuts were loosened, and he was raising the rear bumper. The suitcases, fur coats and silver were heaped to one side in the trunk. As he worked, Keycase could see the cop contemplating the collection. Incredibly, so far, he had said nothing.

What Keycase could not know was that Clancy's reasoning process took time to function.

Clancy leaned down and fingered one of the coats.

"Bit hot for these." The city's shade temperature for the past ten days had hovered around ninety-five.

"My wife . . . sometimes feels the cold."

Wheel nuts were off, the old wheel free. With a single movement, Keycase opened the rear car door and flung the wheel inside.

The cop craned around the trunk lid, inspecting the car's interior.

"Little lady not with you, eh?"

"I . . . I'm picking her up."

Keycase's hands strove frantically to release the spare wheel. The locknut was stiff. He broke a finger nail and skinned his fingers freeing it.

Ignoring the hurt, he hefted the wheel from the trunk.

"Looks kind of funny, all this stuff."

Keycase froze. He dare not move. He had come to Golgotha. Intuition told him why.

Fate had presented him a chance, and he had thrown it away. It mattered not that the decision had been solely in his mind. Fate had been kind, but Keycase had spurned the kindness. Now, in anger, fate had turned its back.

Terror struck as he remembered what, a few minutes earlier, he had so readily forgotten - the awful price of one more conviction; the long imprisonment lasting, perhaps, for the remainder of his life. Freedom had never seemed more precious. The Expressway, so close, seemed half a world away.

At last Keycase knew what the omens of the past day and a half had really meant. They had offered him release, a chance for a new and decent life, an escape to tomorrow. If he had only known.

Instead, he had misread the portents. With arrogance and vanity, he had interpreted fate's kindness as his own invincibility. He had made his decision. This was the result. Now it was too late.

Was it? Was it ever too late - at least for hope? Keycase closed his eyes.

He vowed - with a deep resolve which, given the opportunity, he knew he would keep - that if, through merest chance, he should escape this moment, he would never again, in all his life, do one more dishonest thing.

Keycase opened his eyes. The cop was walking to another car whose driver had stopped to ask directions.