Time and Again

by Jack Finney

  And I was tired. I ached from hours of sitting or lying on wooden floorboards. I was thirsty and hungry, and Julia must be the same. But if there was anything to do but continue to sit here, staring into the next room, I couldn't think of it. I simply repeated to myself that something had to change soon, something had to give; and when Julia glanced at me I smiled reassuringly.

  After half an hour or so Carmody stopped. He got to his feet, revolving his shoulders, rotating his head as he bent his neck, working the stiffness loose. He stood looking speculatively at Jake, and I thought I could read his mind; he was wondering if he dared leave him for a time, and how best to do it. But then he thought of something I hadn't; he turned, and began opening the drawers of Jake's desk one after another. I'd once searched these drawers, too, and I remembered what he was going to find.

  He reached the bottom, left-hand drawer, opened it, lifted out the paper sack, looked into it, then looked over at Jake, and smiled. He sat down on the desk top and ate the four or five big white crackers, holding his cupped hand under his mouth to catch the crumbs, which he tossed into his mouth last. There were soft brown spots on the apple, but he ate it all, including the core. He wasn't deliberately taunting Jake, but Jake sat watching him, and when Carmody stood up again, dusting the last crumbs from his hands, he was grinning. He opened a file drawer, brought out the half-full bottle of whiskey, pulled the cork, and tossed down a good belt. The cork still in hand, he looked consideringly at Jake for a moment. "Want an eye-opener?" he said, and Jake hesitated, then shrugged a shoulder, unwilling to say yes, unable to refuse, and Carmody walked over and, a little contemptuously, held the bottle to Jake's lips, watched him swallow twice, then took it away. Then—I clutched my head in both hands, and rocked back and forth helplessly—Carmody went back to work.

  For over two more hours we sat in a semi-stupor; the snowstorm was heavier now, snow piling up on the window ledge, lying flat against the glass. We'd been here sitting or lying on a hard floor too long, and I knew we couldn't take it much longer. Most of the time Julia sat simply staring at the floor and so did I; after a while I put my arm around her shoulders and made her rest against me, her head on my shoulder. It occurred to me that Jake Pickering looked to be in pretty good shape; his color was better now, probably from the whiskey. But he'd also had more sleep than any of us; and his arms, while bound, were protected by a considerable thickness of cloth, and the leather binding was broad and flat; they wouldn't be numbed. Still, he hadn't been able to stand or move about for over nine hours; I thought he must be in pretty severe discomfort, and I had to admire the calmness of his voice when presently he spoke.

  We'd heard the clock strike nine half an hour or so before, and now Jake—voice a little dogged, an edge of doubt sounding—said, "A financier is bound to be skilled at figures: Here is a problem to test you. If a man can search through two and a half file cabinets in nine and a half hours, how long will it take him to hunt through thirteen?"

  Without turning to look at Pickering Carmody had stopped to listen, hands lying motionless on the compressed paper in the drawer before him. It seemed a mild enough taunt; I expected Carmody to smile or shrug, reply in kind, and resume work. But I'd found myself automatically responding to Pickering's "problem" by trying to work out the arithmetic of it in my head, and I think maybe Carmody did the same. He sat for a few moments apparently thinking; and I believe that something about the inescapable answer to the question—the forced realization of the immensity of what still lay ahead, the long sickening blur of concentration he'd already gone through being only the beginning—got through to him. Because he suddenly broke. He whirled to stare at Jake, who grinned at him, and Carmody spun back to the drawer and plunged his clawed hands into it to snatch up an immense thickness of paper. Arms rising high, he whirled back to Jake and slammed the whole sliding mass of paper down into Jake's face.

  The force of it rocked Jake back in his chair, the metal springs creaking, the paper cascading down his chest and off his shoulders, separating into sheaves and sheets, fluttering to the floor, sliding down off his lap. But when Jake rocked forward again he was still laughing, and Carmody gathered up the rest of the file, an immense wad, stood, and smashed it down onto Jake's swollen head. But Jake never stopped laughing, and then Carmody went wild.

  He yanked a top drawer straight out of a file cabinet, it fell, cracked open, and spilled half its contents, and Carmody booted the smashed drawer to spill out the rest. He yanked out half a dozen more drawers as fast as he could grab their handles, and every one crashed, shaking the entire floor, and burst. Then Carmody waded through the sea of paper kicking, and the paper flew in a waist-high storm. He stood panting for a moment or two, looking wildly around the office—for a way to get rid of the spilled paper, I think, because he suddenly began shoving it with the side of his foot straight toward our doorway. Then he booted a heap of it through under the bottom board past Julia and me, and we heard the flutter of loose sheets, then the distant plop of most of the mass of it landing at the bottom. He shoved out half the paper on the floor like that, under the boarding and down the shaft, before he had to stop for breath, facing Jake and glaring at him, his shoulders heaving, his breath sighing; and Jake never stopped grinning.

  The wild spontaneous action did Carmody good, I think, because as he got his breath back he began to grin, too. And then for a few moments, strangely, there was almost a companionship between the two men. Carmody reached into the inside pocket of his coat lying on the desk beside a file drawer, and brought out a cigar, raising it toward his mouth. But instead he looked at Jake for a moment, then extended the cigar to him, and Jake leaned forward, nipped off the end between his front teeth, and spat it to the floor. Still grinning, Carmody put the other end of the cigar into Jake's mouth, saying mildly, "What the hell are you laughing at?"

  He turned to get a second cigar—they were in a protective leather case—and as Jake replied, Carmody bit off the end of his cigar, listening, nodding. "Because you can kick my files all over the building," Jake said. "You can cause me a hell of a lot of work getting them together again. But you can't eat them, Carmody. Somewhere in this mess, up here or down the shaft or both, are a little handful of papers that are still going to cost you—one million dollars." The cigar in a corner of his mouth, Jake grinned lopsidedly at Carmody who nodded, brought out a big wooden kitchen match, and expertly snapped it to light with his thumb nail. He held the flame for Jake, who puffed the cigar end to a red circle; it made my stomach queasy to watch, before breakfast. Then Carmody lighted his own cigar, leisurely, enjoying the process, the way a cigar smoker does. He breathed out a round puff of blue smoke, then took the cigar from his mouth, and holding it between the tips of his four fingers and thumb, inspected the glowing end satisfiedly. For a moment he watched the glowing end film over with ash. Then he bent his wrist to flick out the match, but he didn't. Wrist still bent, his eyes moved to the flame which was halfway down the wooden length of the match now, the blackened curling head protruding beyond it. He stood staring at the steady orange flame, his thumb and forefinger crawling to the end of the match to avoid being burned. Then he opened them, thumb and forefinger, and simply allowed the match to fall to the floor, the flame fluttering.

  It might have gone out before it reached the floor. Or it might have dropped onto bare wood and burned itself out. But the match end fell, the charred end breaking off, onto the edge of a sheet of flimsy. The room was utterly silent, motionless, except for the tiny wedge of flame; Carmody standing, Jake leaning forward in his chair as far as he could go, cigar gripped in his teeth, both staring at that match. It seemed to go out, a thread of blue smoke suddenly rising, but no. A tiny pale flick of flame showed, held motionless, then suddenly there was a yellow-edged ring on the face of the paper, turning immediately brown. It grew, a ragged hole in the paper, a circle of expanding char ringed by flame. Then it was audible, a tiny crackling, the flame reddening and jumping, the paper brightly afire. The
enlarging ring of fire crawled toward the edge of the sheet, touched an overlapping sheet, and now it was afire, too.

  I didn't remember standing up but of course we were on our feet, Julia and I, her hand clenched on my wrist, her eyes burning a question. I hesitated, standing there at the boarding, my eyes pressed to a crack. If either Jake or Carmody, now, had glanced at the bottom of the doorway, he'd have seen our stockinged feet and ankles, but of course neither did. The flame grew slowly, sliding across the sheets, and I knew that it could still be stamped out, that I could shove a shoulder to the loosened boards and have the fire out in seconds. I put on my shoes to be ready, and Julia put on hers. Then I picked up our coats and hats, and we put them on, our eyes at the cracks. I felt alert, ready to move the moment the fire got out of hand, and I smiled at Julia; I was apprehensive but not frightened, and neither was she.

  But Jake was tied, helpless. I think he tried to hold in the words, his teeth clenched down on the cigar in his mouth, but he couldn't. "Jesus," he said, "no!" Then he looked at Carmody, and now his eyes were pleading; hating it, but pleading.

  Carmody glanced at him. Then, fascinated, his eyes were drawn back to the plate-size ring of very slightly crackling, slowly crawling flame. "It's the answer, isn't it?" he said softly. "Burn your goddam files! And that's an end to it; I simply never thought of it."

  "Carmody. For Christ's sake." Jake's voice was level, then it burst out. "Undo me!"

  "Why?" He wasn't taunting him; it was a serious question.

  "Carmody, you can't. What about other people in the building? Strangers who never did anything to you!"

  "They'll escape; there are plenty of stairs. And the building's past its usefulness; Potter will be glad to have the site cleared." He grinned at Jake, picked up his coat from the desk, and put it on. The flames, I saw, could still easily be stamped out, there was no question of that, and I waited. If Carmody left, I'd have to shove through the doorway, stomp out the flame, and we'd unfasten Jake. I still hoped Carmody didn't mean to leave Jake—and he didn't. He gave him a very bad few moments while he got into his coat. Then he grinned. "I'll let you loose. In a minute. We'll walk out yelling 'Fire!' and clear the building. No one will be harmed." Then he stood, waiting. But paper lying flat—and this was a thick carpet of overlapping sheets—doesn't burn too easily; to flare up fast it needs air from underneath. For a time the ring of flame expanded in almost a perfect circle. Then we watched it turn into a charred-edged distorted oval. My restraining hand still on Julia's arm and shoulder, we stood motionless, silent, watching. The importance of not interfering was strong in my mind; so long as they left soon, Julia and I could leave the building at a walk. I wasn't here to alter events, least of all to save a decrepit old building.

  But Carmody was frowning and impatient now; he stooped, picked up a double handful of paper, and began crushing and twisting it into spills, tossing them onto the flames one at a time, heaping them, and now the flame and smoke suddenly flared, crackling like a bonfire, and Carmody swung to Jake, his hands busy at the buckle at the back of the chair. It was all I could do to stand still, and while Julia obeyed my hand on her shoulder, her eyes were growing frantic.

  Then the buckle was undone, Jake springing from the chair, staggering after the cramped hours of sitting—and he actually fell forward into the flames! But he hadn't fallen; he'd thrown himself onto the fire and was rolling like a madman, and the smell of singed cloth and hair filled the office! He was putting it out, he was going to succeed! Then Carmody had him by the foot and ankle, dragging him from the fire on his back, Jake's arms and hands flailing for something to hang onto. He yanked his leg loose, rolling onto his hands and knees, scuttling back toward the flames, but Carmody ran past him. He thrust the side of his foot and ankle directly into a still-burning wad, and with a sudden thrust of his leg he kicked the flaming mass under the bottom board of our doorway, Julia and I instinctively stepping aside, and it slid across the floor between us and dropped. Instantly we heard it roar with new life as it fell through the air, and I turned in time to look down the shaft and see it hit in a ball of flame, shatter, subside for an instant; and then the mass of paper at the bottom of the shaft burst into fire like an explosion. It was no crackle now; the sound of the fire was the roar of a waterfall, and tongues of flame leaped a third of the way up the shaft—we could feel the beginning heat of it!

  There was no stopping this, there could be no more waiting; I turned the point of my left shoulder to the boarded-over doorway, shoved hard with my right leg, and crashed through, sending the loosened boards flying into the office. I grabbed Julia's hand, and we stepped over the last two boards, still in place. Jake, on hands and knees, had Carmody's foot and ankle in both hands, Carmody hopping frantically on the other fighting for balance. Their faces turned, staring at us in absolute astonishment. For a frozen moment they were motionless, a tableau, Carmody on one leg, Jake on his knees holding the other leg at the ankle.

  "Leave!" I yelled. "You've got to leave! Look, for Christ's sake!" I pointed through the doorway to the shaft; there were no flames visible but you could hear the roar and see the shiny heated air tremble and swirl. Then Jake yanked Carmody's leg with all his strength, and the other foot on a layered mass of slippery paper shot out from under him, paper flying, and he crashed to the floor, shaking it. From his knees Jake leaped forward like an animal onto Carmody, and they began rolling over the floor. I don't know whether Jake didn't understand that the fire had gone down the shaft and that it was far beyond putting out, or whether he'd lost all ability to think at the sight of everything he'd put his hopes in about to be lost. But out in the hall I heard running steps and somewhere else a man yelled "Fire!" A frantic rush of steps pounded down the staircase from the floor above, and a woman screamed chillingly. More shouts of "Fire!" and now it was Julia who counted. The rolling wrestling pair on the floor had been warned, they were free to leave, too, and I turned to the door, Julia's hand in mine, but she was yanking her arm trying to break free. She yelled, "Jake! Jake, for God's sake, leave!" I was hanging onto her hand so hard I was afraid I would splinter a bone, and now I dragged her to the door and opened it. I ducked behind her, grabbing her other wrist to keep her from hanging onto the door frame, and shoved her through; then I forced her down the short hall toward the stairs.

  All over the building we heard screams, and yells of "Fire!," pounding footsteps, shouted names. My left hand on Julia's right wrist now, I was half a step ahead of her, pulling her along, and I swung us onto the stairs, running hard, feet flying, alert not to trip—then suddenly I grabbed the banister, braking us to a stop. These stairs were all right, and—we could see over the railing down the stairwell—so was the landing and the next flight of stairs to the second floor. But from the second floor to street level, the stairs directly beside the elevator shaft were completely gone from sight, a mass of solid orange flame and thick rolling black smoke writhing up toward us. A man in shirt-sleeves, a pen still in his hand, and two girls, their skirts lifted to midcalf, were slowly backing up the staircase toward us, staring fascinated at the roaring black-and-orange mass below. Suddenly they whirled and ran up toward us.

  We ran back up the stairs ahead of them, and then as fast as we could go, all out, down the long hall that ran the length of the building toward the Park Row staircase. Julia tried to slow at the short hallway branching off to Jake's office but I had her wrist, and I yelled that they were probably out and gone. Then we were past, our feet pounding the wooden floor toward the other staircase ahead. But fast as we'd moved we were still too late.

  At the stairwell we looked over the rail, and the Park Row stairs were ablaze from first floor to second, the flames climbing the steps as we stared. Obviously the fire had flashed through the entire lower floors; the whole lower part of the building must be ablaze. The man and the two girls running behind us had come up, and just as we all turned to look back the way we'd come, the flames appeared at the head of the stairs far behind us.
They shot higher, touched the underside of the next flight up, and then those stairs, too, were afire, and now I realized that the floor under our feet was hot.

  I grabbed at the knob of a door beside us leading into one of the offices on the Park Row side; it was locked, and I turned—Julia's hand still in mine—and we ran down this hall along the row of doors to one I saw standing ajar at the very end. THE NEW-YORK OBSERVER, it said on the door when we raced up to it, and we ran into a large room of rolltop desks, wooden tables, file cabinets. A window stood open, its green shade flapping, and with Julia I ran directly to it. If there was to be any exit from this building for us it had to be through this window, and I was inwardly chilled with fright. Because I remembered the building's exterior. There were no ledges running around it, only windowsills, and we were three stories up, three very tall-ceilinged stories; we couldn't jump.

  There were footprints in the new snow on the windowsill: Had someone climbed out and jumped? I looked out; no one lay sprawled on the walk below. But I saw that a crowd was already gathering along the east wall of the Post Office Building catercorner across the street, and in City Hall Park directly across. The crowd grew as we stared; I could see people running to join it along all the park paths. Directly below us in the street the first fire engine had stopped, two firemen running with a hose toward a hydrant, another uncoupling the horses. Bells were clanging, and down Park Row came another engine, white steam jetting from the tall brass cylinder behind the driver, its pair of white horses running all out, manes flying, hoofs striking sparks. And far across the park on Broadway a hook-and-ladder truck pulled by four gray horses made the obtuse-angled turn into Mail Street toward us.