the smile, winning or not, stopped well short of the Tick-Tock Man’s green eyes. They were as they had been throughout: cool, cruel, and curious.
He reached a finger toward the Seiko, which now proclaimed the time to be ninety-one minutes past seven—A.M. and P.M.—and pulled it back just before touching the glass above the liquid crystal display. “Tell me, dear boy—is this ‘watch’ of yours boobyrigged?”
“Huh? Oh! No. No, it’s not boobyrigged.” Jake touched his own finger to the face of the watch.
“That means nothing, if it’s set to the frequency of your own body,” the Tick-Tock Man said. He spoke in the sharp, scornful tone Jake’s father used when he didn’t want people to figure out that he didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Tick-Tock glanced briefly at Brandon, and Jake saw him weigh the pros and cons of making the bowlegged man his designated toucher. Then he dismissed the notion and looked back into Jake’s eyes. “If this thing gives me a shock, my little friend, you’re going to be choking to death on your own sweetmeats in thirty seconds.”
Jake swallowed hard but said nothing. The Tick-Tock Man reached out his finger again, and this time allowed it to settle on the face of the Seiko. The moment that it did, all the numbers went to zeros and then began to count upward again.
Tick-Tock’s eyes had narrowed in a grimace of potential pain as he touched the face of the watch. Now their corners crinkled in the first genuine smile Jake had seen from him. He thought it was partly pleasure at his own courage but mostly simple wonder and interest.
“May I have it?” he asked Jake silkily. “As a gesture of your goodwill, shall we say? I am something of a clock fancier, my dear young cully— so I am.”
“Be my guest.” Jake stripped the watch off his arm at once and dropped in onto the Tick-Tock Man’s large waiting palm.
“Talks just like a little silk-arse gennelman, don’t he?” Gasher said happily. “In the old days someone would have paid a wery high price for the return o’ such as him, Ticky, ay, so they would. Why, my father—”
“Your father died so blowed-out-rotten with the mandrus that not even the dogs would eat him,” the Tick-Tock Man interrupted. “Now shut up, you idiot.”
At first Gasher looked furious . . . and then only abashed. He sank into a nearby chair and closed his mouth.
Tick-Tock, meanwhile, was examining the Seiko’s expansion band with an expression of awe. He pulled it wide, let it snap back, pulled it wide again, let it snap back again. He dropped a lock of his hair into the open links, then laughed when they closed on it. At last he slipped the watch over his hand and pushed it halfway up his forearm. Jake thought this souvenir of New York looked very strange there, but said nothing.
“Wonderful!” Tick-Tock exclaimed. “Where did you get it, cully?”
“It was a birthday present from my father and mother,” Jake said. Gasher leaned forward at this, perhaps wanting to mention the idea of ransom again. If so, the intent look on the Tick-Tock Man’s face changed his mind and he sat back without saying anything.
“Was it?” Tick-Tock marvelled, raising his eyebrows. He had discovered the small button which lit the face of the watch and kept pushing it, watching the light go off and on. Then he looked back at Jake, and his eyes were narrowed to bright green slits again. “Tell me something, cully—does this run on a dipolar or unipolar circuit?”
“Neither one,” Jake said, not knowing that his failure to say he did not know what either of these terms meant was buying him a great deal of future trouble. “It runs on a nickel-cadmium battery. At least I’m pretty sure it does. I’ve never had to replace it, and I lost the instruction folder a long time ago.”
The Tick-Tock Man looked at him for a long time without speaking, and Jake realized with dismay that the blonde man was trying to decide if Jake had been making fun of him. If he decided Jake had been making fun, Jake had an idea that the abuse he had suffered on the way here would seem like tickling compared to what the Tick-Tock Man might do. He suddenly wanted to divert Tick-Tock’s train of thought—wanted that more than anything in the world. He said the first thing he thought might turn the trick.