THE MOON FOR A NICKEL
It was almost midnight. The lake front sweltered in the aftermath of a blazing mid-summer day.
The little man with the straggly gray hair stood dejectedly beside his big black skyward-aimed telescope, upon which hung a hand-lettered sign, "The Moon for a Nickel."
It was too hot. Business was poor.
Over the rippling waters of Lake Michigan the moon hung like a golden ball--but no one seemed interested in it. On the other side, beyond the park, the tall buildings rose: black gaunt shapes against a black background. Here and there shone the white rectangle of a lighted window.
A hand touched his shoulder, and the little man jumped. He had not heard any one approach.
A man with a black slouch hat pulled down over his forehead stood beside him. The telescope man recognized him as a man he had noticed hanging around almost an hour the previous night, watching the telescope, the buildings, and the people.
He was holding out a dollar bill. "Take a walk around a tree, dad," he said. "I want to look at the Big Dipper."
The little man stuck the dollar into his pocket. A buck was a buck--particularly right now. He didn't see many of them. He meandered off and sat down on a bench, just near enough to see that the fellow didn't try to walk off with the 'scope.
Not that he could do much about it-- the guy looked smooth but tough. Thinking about it, the little man became quite uneasy. It wasn't usual to be handed a dollar and told to take a walk. In fact, it had never happened before. But a buck was a buck, and if only he had forty-nine more of them--
Out of the corner of his eye he managed to watch the mysterious stranger without appearing to do so. He had a hunch it would not be advisable to act interested.
The stranger swiveled the telescope around so that it seemed to be pointing up at the nearest building, across the street from the park.
He kept turning the focusing screw. At last he seemed satisfied with the adjustment and moved the telescope slowly from side to side as though he were peering intently into every window. Then he raised it a trifle and seemed to look into the windows of the floor above. Then the floor below.
Then he took out his handkerchief to mop his forehead. But before putting it back into his pocket, he waved it once. He turned the telescope around again so that it pointed out over the lake. Then, without a word, he walked away rapidly.
The little man with the straggly gray hair strolled back to the telescope. He knew that it was none of his business and that he should keep out of it, but his eyes followed the stranger, who became a dark shadow as he crossed the two blocks of park.
Then, as he came out under the street lights of the boulevard, he could be seen clearly again. He climbed into the front seat of a big car parked at the curb.
But the car didn't drive away. It stayed there, waiting.
The little man realized he was out of his element--that sudden death sat in the front seat of that car, and in its vacant back seat as well.
And he didn't want to get killed just then, not when his wife was so ill, when she needed an operation and was counting on him, somehow, to find the money. But fifty bucks was as far away as the moon.
The moon--he should re-aim his 'scope at the moon, so that in case anybody with a nickel came along-- He looked through the telescope and saw a blurred golden disk. He reached up to turn the focusing screw, and then lowered his hand. What was the use?
He might as well go home. No more tonight. The dollar bill had been a windfall, but just enough to be tantalizing. How, where, when, to find forty-nine more of them to pay for his wife's operation? Her wan face seemed to swim before his eyes, superimposed upon the blurred disk of the moon.
He turned back and looked up at the building front across the park. There were a few lights here and there. One on the fourth floor, two in adjacent windows on the eighth. He tried to remember the exact slant of the telescope. It would have pointed, he guessed, at the fifth or sixth floor.
Suddenly, on the sixth floor, he saw a light that glowed and disappeared, showed once more, dimly. A flashlight, he thought. He didn't see it again. Several minutes passed.
Then out of the entrance of the building, two men walked rapidly to the parked car. One carried a small bag.
Curiosity overcame caution in the little man beside the telescope. It was partly a dim hope that if he could get the license number of that car, a description of all three of the men, there might be a reward. But mostly it was curiosity.
He swung the telescope around as quickly as he could, gave the focusing screw a slight twist with a practiced hand, aimed.
As the distant scene leaped suddenly into view as though it were only a few yards away, the men were climbing into the car.
They looked tough. One had a long jagged white scar just above his collar. He had a long thin nose and little ratty eyes. The other man, who was getting in beside the driver, had a fat pudgy face. Through the telescope the little man could make out the baggy wrinkles under his eyes, could almost count the hairs in his toothbrush mustache.
He got ready to swing the telescope to follow the car. He wouldn't be able to catch the license plates until it had moved almost a block. But anyway he could identify all three of the men, anywhere, any time. They seemed almost close enough to reach out and touch.
He saw the man who used the telescope start the car. It seemed so close that he was surprised for an instant not to be able to hear the sound of the motor.
Then the driver turned, looked out over the park toward the lake, toward the telescope. The little man could see his lips moving in what seemed to be silent curses. The driver pointed toward the telescope and said something to the two other men.
Obviously, plans were changed. The car made a U-turn on the boulevard and headed toward the drive leading into the park.
It had to go a few blocks out of its way to get at him, but it was coming toward the man with the telescope.
For a moment he stood petrified. The car was roaring down the straight stretch toward him before he moved. Then he began to run blindly out across the grass, away from the drive.
Brakes screeched. A gun barked and a bullet buzzed past his left car like an angry hornet.
Two automatics were barking now--they did not dare take time to get out of the car and run after him, so they were firing from the drive. But the light was uncertain, and he had presence of mind enough to zigzag a bit.
And then another sound, a welcome sound, came to his ears--the shrill sirens of squad cars. They seemed to come from three directions, converging upon the park. Two of the cars came into sight on the boulevard and swung into two different driveways into the park.
As suddenly as they had started, the automatics ceased to bark. The big black car roared into motion again--but a squad car blocked its way, swinging around to block the drive, a revolver firing at the robbers' car.
The windshield shattered, and the car came to a stop with squealing brakes. A second squad car pulled up behind it. Two detectives from the third car were running toward it across the grass, one of them carrying a submachine gun.
A salvo from the big car made the man with the gun go flat on his belly, and he started firing from that position. The staccato of the gun drowned out the short sharp barks of the pistols. A row of holes six inches apart appeared in the side of the big car.
Only one automatic continued to bark. Then that one was thrown out to the drive, and its owner, trying to surrender, opened the door to climb out. But he fell out instead and sprawled gracelessly in a pool of blood on the asphalt.
In the silence that followed, the little man with the straggly gray hair walked over to the detective who had fired the submachine gun.
"I can identify them," he said.
Then he realized how silly it sounded when the detective looked at him in bewilderment and from him to the body on the drive and the car with its two silent occupants.
"So can I," said the detective, with a grin.
"I mean," said the little man, "that I saw the robbery happen." And he went on and told how his telescope had been used, and the whole story. "Is there," he asked, although he knew very well that there wasn't, "any chance of my getting a reward?"
"What for?" asked the detective, and then grinned. "You're lucky we don't run you in as an accessory, allowing your spyglass to be used by a lookout in a jewelry-house burglary."
The little man winced, and the detective reassured him.
"Naw." he added. "They set off an alarm as they were leaving. We'd have got 'em anyway, a little bit down the boulevard, even if they hadn't stopped to take a pot shot at you."
The police ambulance had driven up, and the three bodies were loaded into it. A cop got into the riddled car and found that it could be driven in under its own power.
The little man walked dispiritedly back to his telescope. A crowd had gathered--the shooting had drawn one of those tremendous mobs of the curious who always gather at the scene of an accident or crime in a city, whether it be noon or midnight. There were hundreds milling about. Excitement can always draw a throng.
The little man perked up. Crowds might mean business.
"The moon for a nickel," called the little man, standing beside his telescope. "See the moon for a nickel."
But nobody much wanted to see the moon. He took in one nickel in five minutes.
He happened to look back toward the building across the boulevard. He saw the looted shop brightly lighted up. He focused the telescope on the windows. As though looking through from the very window sill, he could see the policemen, the detectives, going over the place. Back at one wall he could see a damaged safe. A man came in who looked liked a jeweler, probably the proprietor.
The little man had a big idea.
"See the scene of the crime!" he called. "Half a dollar to see the scene of the crime through a telescope!"
Some one shoved a half dollar into his hand and looked through the telescope. Another. A knot gathered about the telescope. The little man beamed, and began to get heavy about the pockets. He hadn't known that there were that many half dollars. It was hours later before he finally went home, and sixty-one dollars jingled in his pockets.