The Alarming Clock

by Michael Avallone

  She smiled but her eyes were worried as she made room for me. I gave her only a glance. She looked beautiful in a pea-green ensemble and she was bright and shining as a newly minted coin but I was in no mood for appreciation. And she knew it. She didn’t say a word until I had geared out from the curb and raced to the corner to beat a red light. I didn’t relax until we had lost ourselves in a steady stream of traffic on the Drive.

  “Want to talk now, Ed, or are we still playing games?” she asked suddenly.

  I didn’t answer her because I had a question of my own.

  “Were you followed from the hotel?”

  She looked puzzled. “Thought this mess was all over. Did anything come up since I saw you last?”

  I fought with myself to tell her but I couldn’t. It was that big and when the welfare and future of nations is tied up in a secret how can you tell anybody that secret? Even the girl you love.

  “Wheeler, trust me. I’m doing this the only way I know how. All I can say is that your friend Ritz wasn’t spoofing. His damn clock is important. The most important thing I’ve ever tied in with.”

  “What’s the pitch about the George Washington Bridge? We meeting somebody there? And how about Monks—?”

  “Shut up,” I said. “And just kiss me under my right ear on the soft side of my neck. I love you but you’re asking too many questions.”

  She did as she was told and once again I knew I’d made the right pick in the female department. The kiss felt as good as all the others that had gone before.

  I accelerated to get past a crawling Plymouth and a lazy Ford. I started to make good time. Landmarks on the island fell away in rapid order. The clock on the dashboard said seven-fifteen. Monks was probably reading my note right now and fuming. No cop likes to be stood up.

  I checked my rear-view. A pair of headlights were staying with me. I tested them by trying more speed. The headlights didn’t get any smaller. It figured. We had company.

  Alma lit a cigarette for me and herself. You’d never believe she wasn’t just going for a pleasant spin with the boy friend. But I thought it best not to mention the busy little bees on our tail.

  “Alma,” I said. “There’s a .45 in the glove compartment. Keep it on your lap until I ask you for it.”

  That didn’t surprise her either. She did as she was told. Even examined the clip. Her smile was nice and easy.

  “I don’t know but that I don’t want you to sell vacuum cleaners. That might be dull. I’d have to stay home all day washing the dishes. I don’t think I’m built for the ironing board routine either.”

  Changing the subject is good tactics anyhow. Easier on the nerves at any rate. I laughed.

  “Wheeler, if we ever get married, you’d have your hands full. I like kids.”

  “How many did you have in mind?”

  “As much as the traffic will bear.”

  “Wait a minute. You’d better let me out right here. I don’t want to go out for any records—”

  Light, flip talk is good. Easy with real friends, real lovers. But it can’t last when you’re in trouble. I kept an eye on the rear-view. We still hadn’t lost that one set of headlights. They were closer now if anything.

  I gave the Buick more gas. Alma had a nose for trouble too. I could tell that by her next remark.

  “They’re still with us, Ed. Have been for quite some time.”

  They stayed with us all the way too, speed limits being what they are. Soon, the gigantic, lovely span of the George Washington loomed up on the skyline, stretching across the Hudson like a mammoth toy of some kind. A string of car lights pin-pointed its length in a Christmassy sort of way. I took the turn off at the very foothills of the Bridge and cut up towards the entranceway.

  “Hang on, Wheeler,” I said. “Here’s where we go places and do things.”

  She hung on. I pressed my foot to the floorboards. The Buick has a pick-up that few cars on the market can boast of. It’s like suddenly sprouting wings and taking off. We sailed by a heavy truck in high gear, dodged a flow of Jersey traffic slowing off the Bridge and shot like a blue arrow past a startled motorcycle cop on duty by the station box. One second, there was a flash of white, excited faces, the next nothing but the yawning expanse of the Bridge and cars, cars and more cars. And then police whistles and car horns combined for the noisiest, most off-beat orchestration in the world.

  But I knew what I was doing. The broad flat concrete beneath our wheels spread out ahead like a smooth carpet for the feet of giants. I tooled the Buick on a dazzling line, the lights of the Jersey shore dead ahead. The huge cables and stanchions of masonry whipped by in a dizzy kaleidoscope of lights and darks. Then I slowed, the wheel rotated in my hands and I hit the brakes, timing them just right. The Buick lurched to an easy halt but one of its wheels climbed up on the footwalk. I killed the ignition and scrambled out. The cars behind me staggered off to one side and a bunch of angry faces told me what an idiot I was. But that same pair of headlights pulled over to one side too and up the line the motorcycle cop was careening towards me like a bat on the loose.

  “Scrunch down, Wheeler,” I rasped, “and give me that gun. This’ll only take a minute.”

  I scooped the .45 out of her hand, pushed her back down into the car and dodged behind one of the girders. Just in time. More was coming our way. Two shots hummed angrily across the top of the car and spanged off the girder with a whine of sound. Alma had flattened like a pancake. I cocked the .45 because I had picked the trouble spot already. The other parked car on the Bridge had disgorged a bevy of running men. Arms and legs and guns that hid behind vantage points and started blazing away. The bike cop wheeled himself out of danger on the other side of the bridge and all hell broke loose.

  There wasn’t time for any of the niceties of gunplay. I braced myself around the girder and fired three times.

  I never won medals for anything at school but I almost always hit anything I aim at. It was only a snap-shot but one of the running men who had been a second too slow about taking cover suddenly stopped running. As if somebody had stuck a leg out in front of him. He went down hard.

  That would hold all of them. Just long enough to give me time for what I had to do. I worked my hand into my side pocket, gripped the clock firmly and dug it out. It was hard to concentrate. They were pouring it on now. Shots banged and crashed and the one or two I heard thumping into the body of the Buick gave me some bad minutes.

  The bike cop wasn’t any help either. I got the impression that he was shooting at everything and everybody. I hefted the clock in my hand and waited for the break in the shooting, the pause to reload, the tiny breathing space of a heartbeat. And then I heard a lovely sound. A police siren split the shot-sounds wide apart. It was bansheeing from the direction I had come. It was now or never. I raced back away from the girder blazing away with what was left in my .45. But my right hand was busy too.

  I ran to the railing, drew my arm back and uncorked it in the best tradition of big league pitching. The small round clock left my hand like a baseball.

  For a brief instant, it revolved in space then grew smaller and smaller until it was a dark blob of nothing lost against the blackness of the waters. I didn’t wait to see. I got back to my girder, more bullets chewing up the concrete all around me.

  The police brought the party to a screaming halt. Powerful, unwinking, blinding spotlights singled out the car that had tailed us and a riot gun opened up. Somebody cried out in agony and somebody started shouting something that sounded like surrender. I held my fire and waited.

  Someone ran in my direction trying to hide. He burst past my position like a frightened rabbit. I didn’t wait for any introductions. The butt of my .45 did all my talking for me. He never knew what hit him. Just spilled to the concrete and spread out like a bear rug in a rich man’s den.

  Suddenly, there were lights and voices all over the Bridge and car horns squalling. But somehow through all the confusion and caterwauling, I heard Alm
a yelling for me.

  “You can come out now, Ed! Monks is here and he’s mad about something!”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I stepped around the girder and felt like Lindbergh must have, landing in Paris. It looked like a Hollywood premiere. Nothing but cops in uniform, cops in plain clothes, floodlights up all over the Bridge. The bike cop was keeping traffic moving and the cars that wanted to stop and see what all the shooting had been about kept everything plenty balled up.

  Alma broke away from a cop that was asking her a million questions and threw her arms around me. Past the warmth of her embrace, I could see Monks coming towards us leaving a small bunch of guys with their hands up in the air covered by three policemen with riot guns.

  It was a Monks I had never seen before. His face was nearly black with anger and the look in his eyes could only be classed as murderous.

  “This does it, Ed.” Hot steam parted his wide lips. “I’ve tolerated plenty of monkeyshines from you in the past but this is the goddamn end. If you knew something like this was going to happen you’ve got no business endangering the lives of a lot of innocent people with this lone hand routine of yours. You should have waited for me.”

  “What the hell do you think I’m doing, Mike?” I was as sore as he was. “Playing games? I did what I had to do. I couldn’t even trust you the way things are. Not even Alma here. This clock thing was big. Too big for any of us. I handled it the only way I knew how.”

  He was still mad. “Okay. But I want it now. Hand it over. And don’t stall. I’m warning you.”

  “No dice, Mike.”

  He took a big step into me. “I’m going to ask you just once more. Hand it over.”

  I looked at him. Looked at the rest of the coppers standing around us. They were just as mad as he was. I’d brought them all close to stopping a slug and they didn’t love me for it.

  “It’s gone,” I said, talking just to Monks. “Gone where it won’t do anybody any good. Anybody but the United States. I threw it in the drink. And even if you drag the river for it, it will take you a long time to find it. And by that time, it won’t be dangerous any more.”

  Monks’ face opened up like a flower in startled surprise. Hurt surprise too. His cop friends closed in on me as if they were looking for a tree and a rope. Most of them probably didn’t know what it was all about but they could see I wasn’t exactly co-operating.

  “Sorry, Mike. I had to do it.” He looked so broken up by my treachery I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Except the time-worn, no-explanation-at-all classic, “Sorry, I had to do it.”

  Monks waved his men back, his face still working. “Ed, that clock was evidence—”

  “Not the kind you mean, Mike. Believe me I did what I had to do.”

  His eyes got cold. “Okay. Spit it out. Had to do what? What is this clock business for Pete’s sake? Come on, Ed. I’m through asking you in a nice way.”

  Alma huddled by me defiantly to show them all whose side she was on. I squeezed her elbow gratefully and stared right back at Monks and his squad of belligerents.

  I forced a smile. I didn’t feel like smiling.

  “Mike. I can’t tell you. Not now anyway. Believe me, I wish I could. Tomorrow is another story. I can tell you tomorrow. At exactly six o’clock. Not a second earlier. Until then I can’t say a word.”

  He stared at me. Stared at me the way an old friend will look at you and struggle with the proper form of behaviour, the right thing to do about a situation like this one.

  But he was still mad. Madder than I’d ever known him. And police work was his life. And he was a Captain of Detectives. And I was somewhat outside the Law.

  His big mitts got lost in his coat pockets and I knew he’d made his choice. He turned away from me and jerked a shoulder at his eager crew.

  “Lock him up,” he growled. “Him and her.”

  I was surprised but I had it coming. I put my hands out as one of the coppers flashed his bracelets. Alma put her wrists up for encirclement almost proudly.

  Monks walked away without another word and climbed into his own car. I felt bad about things but I still felt I had done what was right. And standing there on the hectic George Washington with myself and Alma shackled like a pair of real bad people, I knew I’d done the right thing.

  Funny but I felt just like Honest George must have felt when he told the Senior Washington that he’d cut down the cherry tree. Yep, I’d tossed the clock in the Hudson River and if I ever got to be President, maybe the schoolteachers would have something to tell the kids some day in class.

  Only thing was, I didn’t think so.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “It’s six o’clock, Mister Noon,” Monks said sarcastically.

  He was freshly shaved and neatly dressed. I stared at him ruefully through the grillwork of one of his best cells. We were all alone because he’d sent the turnkey off on a phony errand to get rid of him. Poor Monks. He was trying to look as righteous as a minister on his Sunday pulpit.

  “Good morning, Mr. Monks,” Alma Wheeler sang out cheerily from her next door cell. We’d had a laughable night together, spinning old jokes and making some plans about permanent prisons like marriage and things like that there. But I hadn’t told her about the clock either.

  Monks wouldn’t let himself be soft-soaped even by the blonde likes of Alma. “Well,” he growled. “I’m waiting. There’ll be an FBI man down here soon enough to get your story but you have to square yourself with me first. Tell me now or I’ll throw the key away.”

  I let him stew a bit longer and elaborately looked at the watch strapped to my wrist.

  “It is six o’clock, isn’t it?” I asked innocently.

  “No, it isn’t,” Alma warned. “It lacks three seconds of the hour.”

  “Go ahead, Mike,” I urged. “Talk to me for three seconds. You might tell me what you think the Giants’ chances are this year.”

  “For the love of Christ!” He couldn’t help it. It exploded right out of the seat of his pants.

  “Just right,” I said. “Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. Six o’clock. Okay. That’s it.” I looked at him. “Mike, what’s the backbone of any country’s security systems?”

  He got control of himself and his eyes narrowed into slits.

  “I’m not here to answer questions.”

  I saw his point. I stopped kidding around.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you from the beginning. It’s code, C-O-D-E—code. Think of it a minute. Everything that’s secret information, every message, every communication pertaining to the military and government defense has to be in a language known only to the user to be of any value. Every country in the world relies on a code of some kind to protect themselves. To keep the other guy from knowing what they’re doing. What they’re planning.”

  Monks sneered. “Thanks for the information. Now, tell me about the clock.”

  “I am telling you about the clock. The clock has everything to do with what I’m talking about. The clock explains Maxim, Fairways. Explains why the Reds wanted it. Explains why Roland Ritz who changed his mind about betraying this country lost his life by not passing the thing on like he was supposed to.”

  Monks stopped sulking, “I’m still listening.”

  I bummed a cigarette from Alma.

  “Ritz had his hands on something that would have meant everything to an enemy of this country. He didn’t know exactly what his big secret was but he did know it was something important enough to cost him his life if he got stopped.”

  “Poor little guy,” Alma said softly.

  Monks was skeptical.

  “I don’t get you, Ed. Suppose the other country cracks a code of ours. So what? Codes can be changed.”

  I sighed. “Mike, be yourself. Any time the Reds can steal a march on us, it’ll hurt. They’d love to know just how far we’ve progressed with atoms and things like that. Doesn’t it hurt to know that all this Soviet espionage is going o
n right under our noses? I thought it was a lot of talk too but when I cracked the secret of the clock yesterday, it scared hell out of me.”

  “Soviet espionage.” I could see Monks tasting the words and he didn’t like the taste of them. “That’s what this FBI man called it. That’s why he wants your end of the yarn. And while we’re on the subject—what about the clock?”

  I gave Alma my cigarette.

  “Alec found an extra cog in the clock. A cog the clock didn’t need. What I mean is the clock ran perfectly without it.” I looked at Monks. “That mean anything to you?”

  Monks shook his head.

  “Can’t see where that has anything to do with codes. A clock with an extra cog. So what?”

  I grinned. “You’re right, of course. That’s all it should be. But this was a clock like no ordinary clock. It was a clock that everyone and his uncle wanted to get their hands on, so right away, anything about this clock has to be considered with a different set of values. See what I mean? Alec and I stripped that clock down. There was nothing in it but the parts and a serial number. The only thing that added up was that spare cog. That would have to mean something. Since there was nothing else out of the ordinary about it.”

  Monks nodded. “I buy that so far. Go on.”

  “It gets better if you think along those lines. Another point—why use the clock to sneak this valuable information out of Washington? Why not a compact or a box of com flakes? Why not something else? Why a clock? After you find the spare cog, there’s only one answer. The best place to hide a spare cog is a place where a cog is usually found. Hell, there are so many in anything mechanical that one extra will escape detection. Believe me, we only found the thing because Alec is so damn good at his job.” I explained how it had happened.

  Monks made a face.

  “Okay. You figured it out like a regular Sherlock. But you still haven’t told me just what in hell you think you found in that spare cog.”

  “Patience, Michael. What branch of the Service were you in during the Number Two War?”

  He winced. “Infantry. Why?”